


Mechanisms of Ego Defense, or Iphigenia Among the English

by whereismygarden



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 404 Luke Skywalker Not Found, Alternate Universe - Historical, Class Differences, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-World War I, Poverty, Sex Work, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unsafe Sex, Virgin Ben Solo, lots of scenes about potatoes, mention of sex work, past Ben/Tai, past Rey/Luke, past dubious consent, sexual jealousy, spoilers in tags, too much credit is given to Freud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:07:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24327787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: It's the spring of 1919, and Ben Solo has been dispatched by his mother to pack up his deceased uncle's house. His housekeeper, however, has yet to move out of said house.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 51
Kudos: 186





	1. Shropshire, Day I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you read, check the tags and/or click for the end notes for content warnings. If you want to read unspoiled, bear in mind that said content warnings are for fairly heavy stuff.
> 
> Otherwise, this is basically done except for the final chapter, so I will update it often.
> 
> I am also sorry about the title, but I'm bad at them and this was the best I could do.

Former First Lieutenant Benjamin Solo, recently decommissioned, adjusted his seat on the brooding grey stallion who hadn’t gotten any better behaved in his years abroad. Falcon, the third of his name, huffed his displeasure when Ben did not dismount and instead urged him onward.

The weak March sun would be gone soon, but if Ben’s memory served him right, he was close to town. In any case, the roads were decent; they could go a little into the dark. He did not particularly want to do so, not when the innocent sounds of animals in the night would send him reaching for his gun, but it was possible.

His nerves and temper were only exacerbated by his errand. Only the sense of duty to his mother had roused him to leave Gloucester, where he had spent the last six months either lying in bed, riding into the forest in a frenzy, or manically writing. He suspected she would have gone herself—indeed, if he had not returned alive she would have had no choice—but wanted to give him a task.

Any other task would have been preferable. He would rather unload at the docks all day than pack up Luke’s house. The remnants of the man—the boy—he had once been whispered that he could have his pick of Luke’s books, but Ben ignored them.

The previous day’s riding had irritated his shoulder and side, and despite himself, he was glad to crest yet another of Shropshire’s many hills and see the meager buildings that made up Bishop’s Castle.

The titular castle was long gone, stone scavenged to build the rest of the town, but the parish church, and next to it, the vicarage, was still standing. A plethora of early spring flowers were muted bursts of color in the fading light as he dismounted from Falcon and lifted the gate to the front garden.

To his surprise, there was a light in the window of the upper floor, a yellow gleam through the diamond-shaped panes. Luke’s funeral had been nearly three weeks ago. There was no reason for anyone else to be in the vicarage.

He settled Falcon with water in the yard after checking all the gates were secure. The well was still good, hinges on the cover well-oiled even after the winter rain. Lifting it made his sore arm twinge, and he opened the front door in a worsening temper.

He hadn’t been here since he was a boy, and he hadn’t much liked it then by the end. The smell in the house was slightly different, though. As a boy, it was always a little stuffy, a little smoky, scented too much like incense and metal. He expected the smell of death, the lingering traces of sickness to rise to his nostrils and assault him, but it wasn’t there. Instead, the house smelled of cold fresh air, flour, and faintly of woodsmoke and kitchen char.

The dark hallways were the same as he remembered, and he fumbled for a lamp and matches only for a moment. The worn red carpets were clean, and Ben walked to the kitchen. The faintest red glow of banked coals shone from the oven, and the smell of fresh bread and flour was stronger here. There was a bunch of early spring herbs lying on the table, next to a knife for chopping.

Had the Church already sent the new vicar? They had assured his mother that they would not, until family had removed Luke’s personal possessions.

In a place as small as Bishop’s Castle, a stranger in the vicarage would have prompted a response, surely? Ben’s eighteen-year-old imagination remembered the town as parochial, full of gossiping busybodies, but Ben the man knew that people sometimes did have their own concerns. And war changed everyone.

He walked up the creaking stairs, his gun safely holstered and hidden under his coat, but within easy reach, even considering his aching arm.

The doors to every room were closed, but the light under the door to the study was obvious, especially in the darkening gloom of the early evening. Ben opened the door without knocking.

He didn’t know what he expected, but a young woman in a plain grey dress, sitting in Luke’s chair and reading one of his books while his old Victor gramophone played faintly, was not it. She startled at his entrance, leaping to her feet and grabbing a pen from the desk to brandish at him.

Ben startled back, wincing as the chair smashed into the wall behind her. His hand twitched towards his gun and he nearly dropped the lamp he was holding, the flame flaring.

“Who the hell are you?” the girl asked, sharp end of the pen pointed unwaveringly at him. She had a faint accent that hovered between German and Dutch. Her face, he noticed through his headache and irritation, was fine-boned and pretty, almost distractingly so.

“Who the hell are _you_?” Ben retorted, eyeing the office as he set down his lap. It didn’t seem to be looted, and it would be a bold thief who cooked herself a meal and played a record disc in the midst of her scavenging of the dead.

“You’re in my house,” she said. “You explain first.”

Ben almost laughed at her assurance. It was grimly amusing, and he felt some of the pain pent up in his skull unwind and hiss with satisfaction as he sneered back at the girl.

“This is a vicarage, not your house,” he said. “That book—” he pointed, recognizing it— “is the property of Luke Larse, or was, anyway. It belongs to my mother now.”

It was a leather-bound edition of _Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens_ _,_ which Ben had not been permitted to read at ten. He read it on his own, later, in translation at Cambridge, but now there was a sudden urge to claim it from this girl.

“You’re Benjamin Solo.” The girl lowered the pen, but didn’t set it back down. “I see. I am Lu—Father Larse’s housekeeper and cook.” She twisted her face for a moment. “Or. I was.” She set the pen back on the desk.

Ben thought. He had a distant, fuzzy memory of a housekeeper at the vicarage, an older woman who also cooked when they visited Luke. He couldn’t remember her name, or even her face.

“Why are you still here?”

The girl’s face contorted through a variety of expressions, ending in one of worried fear that made her look especially young.

“I don’t have anywhere to go.” Her voice wavered for a moment, made more obvious by her accent, but then firmed. “Once the new vicar arrives, I can continue working.”

Ben considered her thin face, which was dotted with a few freckles, and the worn, faded fabric of her dress. His first thought had been that she was pretty, but it was now clear that she was also poor.

“Well, I don’t care if you stay,” he decided. “I’m only packing up his books.” He reached out for the open volume on the desk and the girl snatched it away.

“That’s _mine_ ,” he snapped. If she wanted to stay in the vicarage, what the hell did it matter to him if she kept using up the kitchen stores? Luke was buried miles south and couldn’t eat them. But his job was to collect Luke’s books and papers. What did she want with them, anyway?

“No, it’s not,” she replied, fierce again. She had green eyes, which were very bright. She opened the desk drawer and pulled out a document, handing it to him.

It was a will, Ben recognized it immediately. No one had mentioned one to the man who’d come for his body, but it wasn’t surprising, all things considered. Luke had been sick for weeks, with time to designate recipients besides Leah for his earthly goods.

It was not a long document, listing but four beneficiaries.

_To Resa Weiser, my books in German, French, and Greek. My complement of practical tools and implements, as she desires. My gramophone and records._

_To Benjamin Solo, my books of theology, philosophy, and literature…_

Ben snapped his head up, meeting the girl’s eyes again.

“You’re Resa Weiser?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said evenly.

Ben looked down at her hands covering the book.

“Why would Luke leave his housekeeper his _books_?” he started to ask, then shut his mouth grimly as several things finally clicked into place. She had slipped, almost said _Luke_ and not _the vicar_ or _Father Larse_. Why should a housekeeper move in _after_ a resident’s death—she was already living in the house. There were other rooms, built for resident servants, upstairs, but Ben doubted she stayed there. She was aggressively comfortable in Luke’s study.

“I see,” he said, feeling a burst of anger rising in his chest. Luke, with his sermonizing on piety and charity and godliness. He’d always known it was false, but here was the proof, in the form of a glaring German girl with color rising in her freckled cheeks.

He tossed the document onto the desk.

“Well, Miss Weiser—” he stressed the formality, and the pronunciation— “as _housekeeper_ , I’m sure you’re competent to sort through the books yourself. Perhaps you can also bring whatever Luke had stowed in his bedroom, I’m sure there are some volumes in there, which are actually my property now.”

She closed the book in front of her and leaned to switch off the gramophone, then the lamp, which was electric too. Ben, too distracted, hadn’t even noticed the steadiness of the light.

“Should I make dinner, too, Mr. Solo?” she asked pointedly.

“Yes,” he said curtly, snatching up the lamp and leaving the office, and her, in darkness.

~

He put Falcon away properly in the little two-stall shed, cursing whoever had let it get into disrepair. The only material that wasn’t moldy hay was a small sack of corn, old and dusty but at least edible. He would have to put Falcon in a commercial stable tomorrow—or, more likely, a local farmer’s field.

Falcon whickered at Ben from under the old woolen blanket covered in cobwebs as he stood in the door to the shed, grinding his teeth and getting ready to face the girl again. _Miss Weiser. Resa._

The house was already fragrant when he entered, and a little warmer. Resa had clearly woken the fire, and there was a smell of onions and chicken.

Ben sat down in the kitchen, welcoming the warmth. Resa was stirring in the herbs from the table into a skillet, mouth set. He watched her, thinking. She was pretty, as he’d noticed before. Tallish for a woman, though short compared to him, with a nose and mouth straight out of a novel copperplate. A wide forehead and light hair that didn’t look any more Continental than English to Ben’s eyes, but the accent was real. He’d heard it enough times—not many, but enough.

She scraped the food into two bowls, added bread to the sides, and set one in front of him gracelessly.

“Thank you,” Ben said. “How did you come to work for Father Larse, Miss Weiser?”

“I needed work. Not many were inclined to give it, with my name and accent.” She took a big bite of her food and chewed ravenously.

“Why are you in England at all?”

“I was in Ireland, but there was no work there either.”

“You don’t want to go home?”

At this, she lifted her head and narrowed her eyes at him.

“Do you want to go back there?”

Ben clenched his fist around his fork.

“We never crossed the border,” he said eventually, which was not an answer. But she didn’t want an answer, she wanted to make a point.

They ate in silence for a while. Ben eyed her narrow wrists and the fraying edge of her dress’s cuffs, feeling his rage mount again.

“Did Luke buy you books?” he asked finally, voice venomous. More so than he intended.

She just stared at him, brow furrowing a little. “Why would he buy me books?”

“Why would he leave you books?” Ben countered. She didn’t deserve half of them if she was this dense, he seethed. No matter that he’d convinced himself two days ago he didn’t want them anyway.

“I like reading them,” she said, slowly, as though he were the stupid one.

“What was it, then?” he asked. “Clearly not dresses. That would be rather obvious for an unwedded vicar, even if he went to Ludlow, I suppose.”

“Luke didn’t buy me anything,” she said, ripping off a piece of her bread and shoving it in her mouth.

That was actually worse, for some reason. He felt his appetite, which should have been considerable after a day’s riding, disappear entirely. Everything about Luke indicated that he should have been incapable of carrying out a love affair, but in the face of evidence that he did, Ben would have wished a greedier woman on him, someone to vex him with small vanities like perfumes and laces.

Luke didn’t deserve a pretty, young woman who shared his ascetic and scholarly tendencies. Certainly he didn’t deserve affection he didn’t buy with the compromise of all his principles.

“Well, it’s a pity you didn’t get anything out of him besides a bit of his collection,” Ben said, shoving his bowl away. Resa dragged it towards herself and started finishing it off without a trace of hesitation. She ate like a soldier, a little hunched and hurried.

He heard a rattling sound, and realized it was Resa. Her head was bent forward, but Ben knew the sound of a sob the maker was trying to stifle.

He felt bad, suddenly. Saying cruel, acid things to Luke’s mistress was not going to hurt Luke, and this girl probably missed him. Foreign, still here—she had nowhere else to go, and Luke hadn’t thought to include any money for her in the will.

“Do you have enough wages saved to live until the new vicar comes?” he asked, as a peace offering, looking to the stove to save her dignity.

He heard her cough and sniffle, then clear her throat and breathe shakily.

“What?” Her voice was reedy and uncertain.

“Were you not the housekeeper at all, even for a little while?”

“I’ve been the housekeeper for almost a year!” Indignation made her voice a little stronger, a little surer.

Ben looked back to her face. “What about your wages, then?”

“When—when I came here, I just showed up, and I said I would work for a place to stay.”

“And the good vicar offered his bed,” Ben said savagely. His shoulder felt like it was about to spasm with the tightness in his back and arms and neck.

“Not exactly,” Resa demurred. “I sleep in the small bedroom, the one with the blue quilt.”

“True love, then?” Ben’s voice was strangely high to his own ears. His shoulder ached. Resa just stared back at him, her eyes glittering in the light of the stove.

“You know,” she said. “He was a kind man. And you know, when someone looks at you, you can tell they want you. And anyway, Luke was the reason I was alive.”

“If Luke was a _kind man,_ he’d have sent you somewhere you could make money, or paid you himself. If he was half the Christian he made people think he was, he’d have given you the charity he’s supposed to give, as the vicar.”

Resa said something in German that he didn’t catch, her pronunciation muddy and quick, but the tone indicated her opinion on the reliability of _Christian charity_ well enough. Ben was abruptly reminded of Han. His father had been prone to sour pronouncements on the unlimited potential of human greed, and Ben had yet to find many counterexamples—not that he had ever looked for them.

“He had plenty of money,” Ben continued. “Outside the vicarage, he had inherited money he could have given you, if he really cared.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Resa said tightly, looking down at the empty dishes on the table. “Are you, soldier, casting judgment on me for how I survived?”

“No,” Ben said, which was sort of true. “I’m speaking ill of the dead.” Much good it was doing her. He considered the line of her neck and tried to banish the image of Luke looming over her from his mind. A slight, dulled sense of pity warred with anger—she was fierce and assured with him, how could she just lie back and let Luke do what he wanted? Even under her dull grey dress, he could see the shape of muscle—she could have literally thrown Luke out of her bed. Or his. Wherever they did it.

He was glad he’d only eaten a little, because he felt ill, but his head was also spinning a little.

His mother had her secrets, but protecting the affairs of others was not her typical mode. Ben thought of the young women she was friends with—all wealthy girls, yes, but still, Leah’s bias lay strongly with women. She would not have hesitated to give Luke a piece of her mind had she known, even with her brother on his deathbed.

“I’ll pack up your books tonight, if you want.” Resa carried the bowls to the deep sink and put a kettle onto the stove, sloshing it to test its fullness.

“I’ll leave you a night free of doing Luke’s work,” Ben said, before he could stop himself.

He caught the dirty spoon she swung at him, but clumsily—the side knocked into his face, streaking a little grease across his cheekbone.

“I’m not ashamed of myself, and I won’t be mocked,” she spat at him. “Are you upset like a child to learn your uncle fucked? Maybe I should give you his Freud after all, you ass!”

Ben yanked the spoon out of her hand and snapped it in half with a crack and a pulling sensation in his shoulder.

A splinter of wood lodged itself in his eyebrow, the shock of it making him twitch his head in alarm and blink as blood poured down into his eye.

The smell of it, the feeling of warm, thick liquid running down his face, made Ben’s breath come short. A thunder echoed faintly in his ears, and the vision in his unobscured eye blurred. His hands and feet were suddenly icy cold.

There was a sudden sharp burning in his nose. Sulfurous, but not the sulfur of gas.

Ben blinked to see Resa holding a halved onion under his nose, a wary expression on her face. He snatched a towel from the table and held it up to face, trying to soak up the blood.

“You have shell shock, a little?” she asked, letting him take the onion. Her rough fingers brushed against his. It wasn’t really a question, so Ben didn’t say anything, just tried to breathe and stop the trembling working through his hands. “I’m sorry I hit you.”

“It was the blood smell, so it’s my own fault.” Ben winced as he nudged the splinter with the towel.

Resa tugged the towel out of his hand and drew the lamp he had lit closer to his face. It needed to be refilled soon, but its light let her reach her hand out and draw out the splinter.

“You’re lucky that missed your eye,” she observed, tossing it onto the floor.

He’d emerged hardly wounded, at least with all his limbs mostly intact, and he’d nearly taken his eye out bickering with a housemaid in Shropshire.

“One last strike for the Empire against England,” he said, and Resa laughed.

It was a startling sound, unexpectedly deep and pleasing, a little mean at his expense but joyful. Ben felt the corners of his mouth move upon hearing it.

She gave him a clean rag and some of the hot water to wipe the rest of the blood off his face, and a small pad of folded linen which he held pressed while she cleaned the dishes.

“Wounds on the face bleed a lot, but aren’t serious,” he said, to reassure her.

“I know,” was all she replied.

Ben watched the lamp start to sputter as the cut finally clotted and he set the linen down.

“I’ll pack up the books tomorrow, myself,” he said. “Yours too, if you want me to.”

“Ja, can you ship them to my library in Wittenburg?” Resa said sharply. “Take what you want. I can’t carry them and I have nowhere to sell them, anyway.”

“I can buy them from you. Or just store them for you until you want them.” Ben drummed his fingers on the table. “I feel I should at least leave you some of the money Luke owed you.”

“Like I said, that was not the nature of our deal. I wasn’t fucking him for money.” She lit a match and another candle, setting it into a glass-shielded holder.

“Sure, you were fucking him for shelter. But he still owed you wages for cooking and keeping the house.” Ben fought the urge to grit his teeth. Why wouldn’t she just agree to take some money, if she wasn’t too jealous of her dignity to go to bed with Luke?

“I’m not interested in your money, either your half-hearted charity or whatever you want to buy with it.”

Oh, so that’s it?

“I’m only interested in settling my uncle’s debts. _I_ don’t need the threat of kicking you to the street or the lure of money to take you to bed,” he snapped back.

Resa picked up the candle and walked out of the kitchen, throwing her words over her shoulder.

“You _came here_ to throw me into the street, Mr. Solo, forgive me if I’m not inclined to listen to your principles of seduction.”

He had wanted nothing more, an hour ago, than to never see Resa Weiser’s face again, nor think of the things she made him consider. Now he felt compelled to keep her from walking away from him. But she wasn’t finished.

“I’m sorry Luke didn’t leave you the books you wanted. Like I said, you can take them if you want.”

Her voice was a little thick, he noticed, but she vanished up the stairs with her candle, leaving him alone with the lamp, its wick nearly drowned.

~

He went upstairs in the dark, to find the study light on again. This time he knocked before pushing the door open.

Resa was in the chair again, but staring blankly forward instead of reading.

“Sorry,” he said. “But which room is yours? I don’t want to take it, and I can’t see anything in the dark.”

“Very last one before the attic stairs,” she said flatly.

His temper, hardly settled, howled again for some reason.

“There? It’s drafty and the bed isn’t curtained. It’s practically servants’ quarters.”

“I am a servant,” Resa said, her tone veering into the pitch of irritation.

“Yes, but—if you were—he should have—” Ben dragged at his hair in frustration. She squinted at him, as if he were a fascinating specimen.

“Is your issue that you think your uncle should have bought me presents and dresses and let me stay in the nicer rooms?”

“Yes!” Ben shouted. “For fuck’s sake, he can’t treat you like a servant when you’re his mistress!”

Resa laughed again, this time without humor: a sharper sound, almost a bark.

“Soldier, you have a child’s idea of what the world should be. If Luke wanted a mistress, he’d find a woman to be his mistress properly. Don’t flatter me more than I do myself. Poor women aren’t paramours, we’re prostitutes.” She indicated the will on the desk. “He liked me well enough, as you can see, but he knew the situation. There was no need for flattery.”

“Whores get _paid_ ,” Ben growled. “If that’s your view, then you were cheated.”

“I’d have done more for less,” she said, looking away from him and working her jaw. “So would you, if you were hungry enough, frightened enough.”

“You deserved better,” Ben said, and narrowed his eyes. She wouldn’t look at him, and he thought about her one brief bout of crying. “You wanted better, too. If you truly believed that it’s all survival, all money, you’d take mine. You need it. But you don’t want to because you want to think that maybe you were valued, after all. Sure, he left you to sleep in the cold room and took advantage over and over, but he left you those books you liked, even though he never spent a farthing on you. Surely he must have liked you, at least a little.”

He thought about Professor Snoakes and the hours he’d spent writing and revising for a half-hearted _this will do, I suppose_ once every six months.

“Just go,” Resa said, her voice ragged.

“The dying are generous,” Ben said. “When Luke was well, that’s when he showed you what he thought of you.”

There were tears rolling down her face.

“I know,” she said, the words barely intelligible. “Gehen Sie. _Bitte.”_

He went.

Ben fell asleep in the dusty room his mother and father would share when they visited, without removing his coat or boots, as soon as he lay down.

He dreamt of cold mud, as usual, but interspersed with the cries of the wounded and the thunder of machine guns was a woman’s voice saying _just go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings:  
> Past Rey/Luke, with a strong implication of abuse of power and coercion on Luke's part. Discussion of sex work in early twentieth century terms. A little bit of violence between Rey and Ben. Ben has a minor flashback episode to trench warfare, nothing explicit.
> 
> Notes:  
> I wanted to name Rey "Raisel" but it turns out that the only actual German version of that name is Rosalie, which does not abbreviate to the sound of Rey, so Resa it is.
> 
> Bishop's Castle is a real town in west England, and I tried to keep the historical and geographical elements mostly correct.
> 
> My German is bad and it won't improve. It's there for flavor, but if it's truly unintelligible to you, I'm open to constructive correction.
> 
> I wrote this in different sittings so the flow is a little weird, but I'm not invested enough to fix it properly and hopefully the story is still engaging. Sorry about the wild shifts in style.


	2. Shropshire, Day II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Further discussion of some of the topics from the previous chapter. Reylo-typical bickering, tears, etc.

In the months since his return home, he’d slept late often, but the unfamiliar room and the chill of the house woke him early.

The light of sunrise was still faint, but he got up to walk Falcon down the road to the public house. The proprietor had a small paddock and clean hay, and took Ben’s coin with a murmur of condolence, which Ben ignored.

When he returned to the vicarage, the fire in the stove was stoked once more, and Resa was shaping a loaf of bread with practiced hands. There was a water tank installed, for the sink, but when he knocked it with a knuckle, it echoed deeply. He used his left arm to pump it more full, remembering his mother directing his father to do so in some distant memory.

“Thank you,” Resa said. She already had the kettle on the stove, and a coffee pot set out on the table. “Do you want tea?”

“Coffee is fine, thank you.”

She didn’t seem inclined to cry or scream at him, both of which he deserved, with the clarity of morning. Still, the words from the night before simmered uneasily between them.

“Miss Weiser. Should I speak to the new vicar, when he’s appointed, so that you can retain your position? I would say that you are accustomed to that room, and simply give him the regional wage amount.”

“There’s a chance he’ll have his own household: a wife who will want to set things up her way.” She placed a towel over the bread. “I ought to go north, or really north, and get a factory job. It’s not needed.”

“I could, whether it’s needed or not.” The kettle was starting to rumble with a boil, so he took it off the stove with a towel and brought it back to pour into the bright copper coffee pot.

“You’re not required to make up for whatever you think of as Luke’s sins,” Resa said pointedly. She hadn’t pulled her hair back yet: it was shorter than he’d thought, brushing past her shoulders and not much further.

“As if I could begin to dent at that mountain,” he muttered. “Is there food?”

“I started a, um, Haferbrei,” she jerked her head at the stove. “An oat porridge?”

There was even a half-full jar of blackcurrant jam to spoon into the porridge, when it was ready. Ben looked at the china and wondered if it belonged to Luke, or to the vicarage. He still had his task for the day.

He went first back to the study to read the will in full.

_To Resa Weiser, my books in German, French, and Greek. My complement of practical tools and implements, as she desires. My gramophone and records._

_To Benjamin Solo, my books of theology, philosophy, natural sciences, and literature._

_To Cai Bakke, my service saber and medals._

_To Leah Solo or her heirs, the complete remainder of my personal possessions, holdings, and monies._

He shouldn’t be surprised that he gave his regalia to Chewy. Ben had Han’s—well, he had what of Han’s the old man hadn’t lost—and Luke had no children. When he had been a boy, he’d been interested in hearing Luke’s stories of being a chaplain in the army retaking Mahdiyah, of the harsh weather of the Sudan and the squabbling between the different religious groups in the army. Now, he knew war intimately, and the part of him that cared about that sword and medals was a ghost of the past.

Technically, Luke had more subjects in his library than those listed, and plenty of each subject mentioned in German, French, and Greek. Ben, finding his cataloguing system obscure to nonexistent, simply separated everything in those languages into a crate for Miss Weiser. It was more than a single box’s worth, and he tried to imagine Resa, with a valise of her belongings perhaps, trying to haul all the volumes onto a train. He would struggle to carry the box further than a quarter mile without panting, even were his arm in top condition. There was no way she could manage these. The gramophone, even dismantled, would be more trouble.

He knew, too, that the practicalities of her situation would mean that stripping the kitchen of anything valuable or useful would be a smarter course for her. Hopefully, she was doing that now. He wondered if any of Pamela Nabitt’s silver was in the vicarage. His mother would maybe want it, though she rarely even donned a single item of her birth mother’s jewelry or clothing.

Perhaps he could check the Shrewsbury pawn shops in a few months’ time for anything familiar, if his mother found anything missing.

Ben had never given more than a moment’s passing thought to the situations of the widowed, displaced, and desperate women the war must have created. He’d been too battle-sick and cold-hearted to visit the whorehouses anywhere behind the front, in the battered, crumbling villages of France. However, now he was preoccupied with the problem of Resa.

How had she gone from Germany to Ireland? Her name and speech were clearly German. Perhaps there had been some minor successful attempt at sending more arms to the Irish from the Empire. Ben could not find it in himself to care whether Resa had come smuggling rifles to the nationalists or been trapped abroad after war broke out. He could not find it in himself to care about much, these days, and that he cared about _her_ was invigorating as much as it was confusing and upsetting.

In truth, he was not that confused, if he admitted it to himself. He turned over another of Luke’s books, this one in translation. _The Interpretation of Dreams._ He did not think he needed a lesson from Dr. Freud on what his every dream for the last three years had meant.

As for his other feelings, he could loosely call them ‘jealousy’ and ‘rage’—jealousy of Luke, who’d spent the last year making love to a beautiful woman instead of bleeding in France, jealousy of Resa, first in Luke’s will, before his own name, jealousy of the concept of comfort or closeness, and rage on Resa’s behalf, for letting Luke treat her like a whore and not caring, rage at the way Luke had treated _him_ after refusing to train him in theology, rage at the world and the war for leaving him here, in this cold vicarage, packing up a dead man’s books and brooding over a penniless foreigner.

He was making slow progress. The shelves were only half empty and he was shaking with emotion again.

He went downstairs and out, into the front garden, and sat down on a flagstone in the lawn. It was icy cold, but not damp: the southern exposure of the front of the house meant the watery sunlight had been sufficient to dry the stones of what was a charming little path amongst the flowerbeds in summertime. Now, there were just a few little pricks of yellow-green leaves showing in the mulch and drifted leaves of the winter: daffodils or narcissus, shouldering through.

He breathed slowly and thought of nothing, nothing except the brown moors and bleached blue sky, and the calls of birds all through the village.

Ben wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting, except that his legs and backside were half numbed, when up the path walked Resa, a basket over her arm and a sack over her shoulder. She had pulled back her hair and covered it with a scarf and wrapped her shoulders in a heavy shawl. Whatever she was carrying, it must have been heavy, because there was a flush on her cheeks and a slight bit of perspiration on her brow. He stood up and reached out for the sack, which was both bulky and heavy.

“What’s this?” he asked, shifting it to his left arm.

“Onions, potatoes, flour,” Resa said shortly. “I didn’t store many from the garden here this winter.”

Ben remembered his mother saying, in an eerily calm voice, that Luke had taken ill over the winter and neglected to inform her until the very end.

Unwilling to return to the study after placing the sack in the kitchen, he sniffed appreciatively at the smell of fresh bread in the room. The loaf Resa had made that morning was baked, wrapped again in a towel but still releasing its aroma.

“Knife is there,” she told him, pointing, and he sliced four thick slices, putting them on two plates, finding the jam from the morning’s meal as well.

Once he started eating, he found he was hungry, and finished quickly. Resa still finished before him, and he looked away as she licked traces of jam from her fingers with careful attention. The sight of her lips parted around her fingers caused a half-uncomfortable, half-pleasant tightening feeling below his belt.

_She’s Luke’s mistress,_ he told himself. _She’s still mourning for him._ This was not especially convincing: Resa had only shed tears over their arguments, not for Luke. Perhaps she did not want to share her feelings with Ben, but her stoicism seemed part of her character, not a front to hide grief over Luke.

_She’s gone to bed with Luke_ , he reminded himself, but the cold revulsion that worked up his spine did not dampen the fire growing in his lower belly. The scarf she had worn against the cold was slipping back, and he could see the disheveled edges of her gleaming hair.

The last and only time Ben had been alone with a girl was when he was twenty, nearly a decade ago, and Kaitlin Connors, his mother’s petite protégée in all things political and educational, had let him kiss her. The last time Ben had felt another person touch him intimately had been even earlier—himself and John Tye, avoiding the cruelty of the other boys at school, letting them assume what they would about their relationship. Ben had been tall and half broad even then, but all they had ever done was hide in Ben’s room and kiss and touch a little.

Studying under Snoakes and then the war had robbed him of all desire. His comrades in the trenches had alternated between detailed, braggadocious fantasizing about their girlfriends and their prowess in fingering, fucking, or both, and clandestine nighttime meetings for mutual relief. Ben had not found solace there, though it had been impossible to avoid the knowledge of it any more than the existence of whorehouses.

She looked over at him, catching him staring and no doubt flushed.

“Will you offer outright to pay me, now?” she snapped, though he hadn’t said a thing. She had implied that last night, too, that he wanted to buy her.

“No,” he said, chagrined. “I’m sorry for staring.”

Resa was glaring now.

“What’s the matter? Afraid to put your cock where his was?”

He had backed off, and now she was pressing at him again.

“No,” he said. “I’m only interested in, as you say, _putting my cock in_ women who want me.” It wasn’t a lie, though it implied multiple lies. Things like indifference and experience, of which neither did Ben possess a single scrap.

“Soldier, you know when those girls in France said they truly wanted it, they were talking about your coin, not your cock.” Her voice was scornful as she dunked the potatoes in a bucket of water and scrubbed at the dirty skins.

“I’m sure you’d be right,” Ben said. “If any girl in France had ever received either from me.”

There was a dull thud and splash as Resa dropped a potato onto the ground. Ben looked over as she picked it up and tossed it back into her bucket, rubbing with her rag, cheeks flushed. It made her freckles harder to see.

“So you’re a man who won’t pay for it?”

“I won’t trick or trap anyone into it, either,” he said venomously, watching her set the cleaned potatoes on the table with reddened hands.

She didn’t say anything in response, to this, just took a small knife and started peeling, mouth set. Ben felt gratified, like he had won a round in whatever this was, but he still couldn’t leave the kitchen. Resa’s blush made her prettier, and if he stood up from this bench, it would be obvious how taken he was with the sight of her.

_Luke’s mistress. Luke. Luke, with his old-fashioned beard and clerical collar, his grey hair, has been fucking her._

It didn’t work to make him less interested, because Luke was a blurred figure in his memory, while Resa was sitting right there, and he could imagine the fine, strong arms under the sleeves of her dress, could tell from a look that her breasts would be small but no less enticing for it, could see the delicate outline of her lips and imagine kissing them.

Life had not provided Ben with experience of these things, but neither his school days nor his time at university had deprived him of reading material: old books from the time of the former queen, with wood and copperplate illustrations to supplement the detailed descriptions of copulation. Armitage Huxton, Snoakes’s other pupil, had been insufferable, but also opinionated on the best treatises on how to pleasure a woman, for, as he put it, “Cambridgeshire whores and London ladies will squeal the same if one knows what one’s doing.”

He rubbed his eyes and wondered if he’d be doomed to imagine how exactly stubborn European housekeepers squealed every time he touched himself for the rest of his life.

He hadn’t had a single thought of sex since he returned home, not until now.

“You’re a strange man,” Resa said, interrupting his indecent and woeful thoughts.

“Yes,” he admitted. “I am.”

Now she was looking at him with amusement and something else, a kind of softness that was better than defensive rage, but no help in softening his still-erect prick.

“I will tell you,” she said, picking up another potato from her clean pile and slicing the skins off with easy motions, “because I already know so many secrets of yours.”

“Do you?” he asked, intrigued.

“Yes. I know you are strange, that you are haunted, that you have some ideas about men and women that are better suited for a girl’s novel than the world. You are more like a knight from a fairy tale than a man from this time.”

Ben found himself laughing again, but stopped after a moment.

“I am not joking,” Resa said. “I have found that you are soft-hearted, which is dangerous information to have.”

Her expression was serious, and Ben had to look away. He was not aroused any more, and felt uncomfortable at how easily and confidently she said these things. They felt both like compliments and scathing indictments of weakness.

“I will tell you,” she said, now picking with her fingers at the potato peelings, shredding them into bits, “that before I came here, I had never fucked a man. But I considered it worth it, worth it for my safety here. Luke didn’t hurt me. So maybe you are right, that I should ask for more, or that I secretly want different things. But things are as they are, so stop vexing yourself about them.”

Ben considered her nervous fingers.

“Miss Weiser,” he said. “Resa. I don’t pity you. I’m glad Luke didn’t hurt you, as you say. I’m glad you got what you wanted for what you did. I don’t think you deserve any shame, not for that. I still think Luke does.”

“Luke is dead,” Resa said. “And he didn’t hurt me.”

She was determined to say things he couldn’t let pass.

“Did you love him?” Ben retorted. “Did you desire him? Was he a man you’d see in the street and want to bed?”

“That’s not the issue,” Resa said, looking away. “I wish you would stop fixing on it.”

“Was _fucking_ him—” Ben emphasized the word, lingering on the crudeness, “anything other than something to endure until it was over? Tell me yes, truthfully, to any of my questions, and I’ll not judge him harshly anymore. Tell me you really wanted it and I’ll stop.”

“Luke was kind,” she insisted, and got up to fill another bowl with water. Ben watched her hands tremble a little as she placed the peeled potatoes into it, submerging them. “He let me read his books, and even comment on his sermons.”

“Was he a good lover?” Ben pressed, feeling victory close. His head was buzzing.

“You’re too interested in knowing this about your uncle.”

“I’m interested in knowing this about _you_ ,” he said, then clamped his jaw shut.

Resa looked back at him, her mouth slightly open. He could see a tremor in her arms, and high color on her cheeks and neck.

“Why?” Her voice was deep, rasping with some suppressed feeling.

“I told you. You deserve better. Love, or tenderness, or pleasure.”

“Is that something another man would do better than Luke?” she asked, in what was clearly an attempt at her usual arch scorn, but collapsed into a ragged gasp.

“I would at least _try._ ”

Resa looked away again, with a little gasp.

“I would at least care it was _you_ with me, not just the body of a girl who was conveniently close and couldn’t say no,” he bit out, and kicked himself when more tears poured out of her eyes.

She covered her face with her shawl and hunched over at the table.

His victory in their argument felt suddenly empty. What had he expected, that she shake his hand as though they had engaged in a lively classroom debate, and agree that she had been brutalized with an expression of perfect calm on her face?

“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching his hand out across the table but stopping short of touching her shaking shoulders.

“I know,” she said thickly. “You told me last night. You don’t have to remind me. I’m no one. No one cares and I don’t mean anything.”

“No,” he said, desperate for her to understand. “You’re not nothing. You shouldn’t be treated like nothing.”

She raised her face, now an uneven and blotchy red, from her shawl and fixed him with those fierce green eyes for a moment.

“Danke,” she mumbled, sniffling. Ben reached out and touched her hand for a moment: there was dirt and the dried foam of pink starch from the potatoes encrusting her work-raw, cold fingers, but he didn’t care at the moment. She didn’t flinch away, just breathed out slowly, and then in again.

After a while, he left the kitchen and went back into the office. This time, he packed methodically, not letting himself get distracted by the books or his thoughts, and it was mid-afternoon when he finished, putting a lid on a small box of notebooks that were perhaps sermon notes, or journals. His mother could look at them if she wanted.

By this time, he was hungry, and made his way back to the kitchen, wondering if there was anything more substantial than bread. Resa was nowhere to be seen, and he was not much of a cook when it came to rations over an open fire: he didn’t dare try to stoke the stove and burn whatever remained in the cupboards.

Instead, he walked down to the public house, where he checked on Falcon and bought a dinner. The cook brought him a slice of pie with a golden crust, full of beef, mushrooms, and onions. He even ate a withered apple from last fall’s harvest and drank a pint of the house’s ale, which was of fair quality.

He couldn’t remember if he’d been here as a boy: the Bishop’s Keys, it was called, and its warm, dark interior felt the same as every public house in England. He dimly remembered sitting with his legs dangling while his father, Cai, and Luke played cards in a room like the one in which he sat. The smell of kitchen smoke and beer was familiar.

At length, Ben finished his dinner, and left the warmth behind for a cold March afternoon, with grey skies and a rising wind coming off the hills. His walk back to the vicarage was brisk, and it hardly felt warmer inside than outside, when he shut the door behind himself.

He went straight to the kitchen despite himself, to get a light and kindling for a fire upstairs if nothing else, to find it starting to warm. Resa had stoked the stove, and there was, in a clay dish on the table, a half-dressed half chicken, plucked and cleaned. The bowl of potatoes was still there.

He raided the kindling box and took a candle and taper, wondering if the fireplace in the room he’d slept in was clear. Sleeping in Luke’s room was an unpleasant thought, but with the wind rising, he’d rather be in a room with a fire. On the floor in front of the grille was fine with him.

Resa came back in through the back of the house, a fistful of rosemary in her hand.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re back.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Ben said. “It’s cold upstairs. I want to light a fire before the sun goes down.”

“The hearth in the study and in Luke’s room are both clear,” she said, fishing the potatoes out of their water and chopping them into fourths. A few bits of the rosemary were caught on her hands and little green flecks were incorporated into the potato chunks. Ben found himself again struggling to look away from her hands.

“The one in the room with the lady’s dressing table?” Ben asked.

“Maybe,” she said, placing the potatoes around the chicken in the dish, then some quartered onions, then shoving in the rosemary sprigs. Ben watched her cover it with another fired-clay piece, then place it in the oven.

“Is that for our supper?”

“Unless you’re going to cook anything.” Resa eyed him skeptically.

“I can make breakfast. Eggs and sausage over a fire in the garden,” he said, smiling a little at her.

To his surprise, she smiled back. Her eyes were clear, not red.

“Sure, let’s have that, tomorrow.”

Ben, reluctant to leave the warmth of the kitchen, cast about for something to say.

“Where did you learn to read Greek?” he finally asked.

“I learned myself,” she said, shrugging. “I don’t read well, truly. Better since I came here. I worked in a pawn shop, a little shop of old things, when I was younger. It wasn’t much work once war started. There were books there.”

“You didn’t learn in school?” Ben remembered vividly the difficulty of committing complicated grammar and vocabulary to memory, the threat of a caning from the schoolmaster looming over any failure. He had focused on Latin texts once he was in the university: there was no avoiding the Greek, and he did understand it, but being a new learner had been hellish.

“You think girls like me go to school and learn Greek?” she said. “I am lucky I can read at all.”

“Can you read English?” Ben asked, curious, when she didn’t say anything further.

“Not really. It gives me a headache. So does Greek, but at least there are interesting things to read in Greek.”

“There are interesting things to read in English,” Ben objected, mentally casting back to what he’d packed up today. Luke did not have much interesting in English, in truth. He thought of his mother’s bookshelves. “What about _Frankenstein_?”

“Do you like novels, soldier?” Resa sounded amused, rather than scornful, though the difference in tone was subtle, and he smiled to himself again.

“As much as any boy does on a school holiday,” he huffed. “I’m not a bore who witters about the corruption of penny dreadfuls and theater and novels.”

“Ah, pity, I thought you were still a knight, only reading catechism,” she said, and got up to pour the cloudy water from the potato bowl into the sink.

“Don’t knights listen to ballads?”

“Yes, love ballads,” Resa agreed, drying her hands.

“I don’t know any.” Ben watched her as she sat back down. “I read an English poem, once.” He could only remember a bit of it: one of his mother’s volumes of popular poetry from her youth.

“Once?”

Ben didn’t respond to the bait, going over the lines in his head. “Da ist Suse in dem Apfelbaum, und Profit in das Korn. Aber die Dame von alle Schöne, ist dem Rose auf dem Dorn.”

“Clever,” she said eventually. Ben could see color in her cheeks again.

He didn’t want to leave. He should go, and brave Luke’s bedroom, and pack the rest of his things. The warmth of the stove was minor compared to the warm feeling having made her blush with happiness gave him. The constant clatter and storm in his head felt calm, and far away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, again. Was this the third or fourth time in a full day he was saying this to her? “I’m sorry for being so indecent, and rude, to you, earlier.”

“You’re forgiven,” she said, and he startled. “I learned you were a little jealous, I think.”

Now it was his turn to blush. He cleared his throat and rubbed at his face, catching the cut over his eye and wincing.

“Uh,” he managed to get out. “Sorry.”

“I was angry at first too,” she said. “When you looked at me like that.”

“Like what?” Ben couldn’t remember exactly how he’d felt last night, much less how he’d looked to a woman he didn’t know.

“Like I was disgusting.”

“You’re not disgusting! No,” he burst out, too loudly. Maybe his sneers and contempt for Luke had struck her, unintentionally. His heart clenched.

“Because, if I saw you in the street, I would think you were handsome,” she continued, half in a mumble. “Too rich for me, but I know rich men will get down amongst the dirt.” She drew the point of the knife under her fingernails, cleaning out the mud. “But I was jealous back, because you weren’t just rich, you were good, and wouldn’t want me.” Her voice was starting to sound clogged again, and Ben could not stand it if she cried in front of him again. “You were right, I did want someone to—to, to—I wanted someone I wanted, and then I wanted _you_ and you knew. You knew I was nobody, to Luke. And you don’t even want me like that, because you don’t fuck whores, especially whores that already fucked your uncle—” She _was_ crying, seizing her hair with her hands.

“No,” he interrupted her, and reached out and grabbed her wrists. “Please, Resa. Please.” He got up, carefully, not letting go of her, and edged around the short side of the table, until he was standing next to her bent figure. He pushed the bench she sat on with his knee, swinging it out until he had space to half-crouch, half-kneel in front of her.

“You’re not dirty. I lived in the dirt for years. You don’t belong in the dirt and you’re not dirt.” He rubbed his thumbs across the backs of her hands, feeling her dry skin catch on his. “I was jealous; I was jealous of Luke over you. You’re right.”

He dared to lift his head to meet her eyes, feeling like a supplicant on his knees. Her eyes were hidden, among the locks of her undone hair, and her lids were lowered besides. He could only see the faint glisten of a tear clinging to her lashes.

“I did—I do want you. You’re very beautiful. I don’t care who you went to bed with or why, at least not the way you think. That doesn’t make you dirty.”

She wrenched one hand free from his grip and rubbed her arm roughly across her face, tossing her head.

“I don’t understand,” she said, in a subdued voice. Her eyes were fearful, meeting his.

“I just mean, that I want you, not for money, and not for fear. Just for you. That’s all.”

She looked down at where he was still holding her hand, and stroked her thumb over his. A shiver worked its way down his back at the movement.

“I’ve been alone a long time,” she said, and Ben knew she wasn’t talking about the weeks since Luke’s death.

“You won’t be alone, with me, if…” he faltered. “I can see you, as you are.”

“What do you see, soldier?” she said, voice a little more settled.

“You can call me Ben,” he said, and watched her swallow. “If you like,” he added hastily.

“What do you see, Ben?” she repeated.

The sound of his name in her voice made him warm all over, and he squeezed her hand.

“You’re brave. You were ready to stab me in the study when I surprised you. You learned Greek on your own; you’re cleverer than any statesman in England. You’re strong,” he nudged her hand again. “Those potatoes were rather heavy.”

She gave a wet laugh, short but immensely relieving. He wanted to press his forehead to her knee, but remained where he was.

“If I met you in any other case, I’d have to beg you to let me court you.”

She laughed again, a little freer, and flicked his hand with her free one.

“You’re strange, Ben,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Ah. I also—I also want you. Or, I think I do. As I said—I don’t know exactly what that means. To be with anyone. To want.”

Ben rose to his feet, then circled around to sit down next to her at the table.

“You can tell me what you feel. Or not. We needn’t do anything; as I said, I don’t want you for fear.” He worked his jaw, thinking. “I can go work upstairs, if you want to think alone.”

“No!” Her hand reached out, as quickly as it had last night to cover her book, and grasped his wrist. “I like that you’re here.” She bit her lip. “Are you really certain you want me?”

Ben had to look away from the sight of her mouth curved under her teeth, as it set his heart pounding.

“Yes,” he said, his voice sounding lower than typical to his own ears. “If you want me.”

She pulled her hands back again, but not before squeezing his wrist.

“Is this the typical conversation on this subject?” she asked, tucking her hair behind her ears. Ben, feeling freer, reached out and mimicked the gesture with a lock that slipped free. Her hair was very straight and smooth, he had noticed, easily spilling loose from buns or scarves. She twitched a little at the touch, but didn’t shy away.

“I expect not,” he said. “I think there are typically more secretive meetings, rather than having the run of a house, and more fervent declarations of appreciation for beauty and sweetness. Though,” he swallowed, “I can do my best to supply the deficiency there.”

She frowned at him, folding her arms in front of her stomach. “I don’t understand you. You think I’m pretty, or not?” Her jaw was starting to move into what Ben could now recognize as the set of defensive anger.

“No!” Ben raked his hand through his own hair, now. “You are beautiful. I said that. I meant that I will have to say it more.”

“Oh,” she said. “I think your English is a little complicated, when you talk more like a rich man.”

“Forgive me,” Ben said. “I’m sure I will misstep again, but I would never call you anything less than beautiful, even if I say it wrongly.”

“Flattery,” Resa said, but now he could tell that the narrowing of her eyes was in amusement.

“Of course,” he said. “We were speaking of the proper vocabulary for seduction and want. I was saying you are beautiful, schön, belle.”

She didn’t meet his eyes, just scraped together the potato peelings into the empty bowl. Ben could see a blush on her cheeks.

“My hands are dirty,” she said, and got up and left the kitchen quickly, taking the bowl with her.

Ben immediately put his head in his hands and his arms on the table, drawing in a shaky breath. His mind was churning, trying to work through everything that had transpired.

He had returned to the house and had a pleasant conversation with Resa. They had discussed—some practical matter, which he had forgotten now, and books. Greek, and English.

He had apologized again for his jibes and pressing at her wounds, and she had forgiven him.

He wasn’t sure what had gone differently when they had spoken at dinner, when they had been speaking amiably, until he made her cry, or at the morning, when their conversation was perfectly even-keeled, despite mentions of Luke, and money.

Perhaps he couldn’t speak without offense when he was hungry. Perhaps he couldn’t think when his prick was hard, or perhaps Resa had been honest when she admitted she was angry too.

He didn’t want to think too hard about what she had said, about how she felt regarding herself and her worth, because he would get angry again and say something she took offense at, even though he intended none towards her.

He wanted to think about she meant when she said _I want you._ Did she mean just that she thought him handsome, the way she might idly think any man she saw handsome? Or did she actually desire him? And, with that desire, what did she wish to do? He had all but told her he wanted to go to bed, without asking. He didn’t want to ask—he knew well enough that if he asked, she might be afraid to say no, whatever he told her. He wanted her to ask.

No girl—no woman had ever asked him before. Never said _I thought you were handsome._ The memory of Resa’s words made him feel strange, as if he were melting like candlewax from the heart while at the same time his cock stirred in response to the idea of her desire.

He was still deep in his thoughts when the kitchen door opened again and Resa walked back inside.

“Hello,” he said, lifting his head. His tongue felt stupid and slow in his mouth.

“Guten Tag,” she returned. “Should we go upstairs?”

Ben choked on nothing and bashed his knee against the leg of the table. That was her asking, surely.

“Um,” he said, feeling warmth spread across his face. “If you would like to.” He swallowed. “I’ll do whatever you like.”

“The oven is slow,” she said. “I can leave it for an hour at least.”

“Very well,” he said, and considered praying that she wouldn’t notice that his trousers were tighter in the front than normal. But she turned her back, and walked to the door to the rest of the house. At the door, she looked back over her shoulder at him, an open expression on her face. He wasn’t sure he had seen her eyes look so wide before, and got to his feet hastily.

The sound of their boots muffled on the worn carpet and the creak of the stairs were loud in Ben’s ears, almost as loud as the thumping of his heart. He kept his eyes trained on Resa’s crumpled hair. The long line of her back was interrupted by the strings and ties of her apron and the shawl, but his mouth was still dry thinking of how he might run a finger down her spine.

Ben followed her to the end of the hallway, into the little room on the north side of the house. He had slept there, as a child, until his legs grew too long for the bed.

It was similar to how he remembered: the bed, big enough for a reasonably sized adult, covered in a blue rag quilt. A wardrobe of pine wood, which was closed but had another kerchief draped over the handle. A simple chair, with a thin linen pillow, and a little table with a pitcher and basin. None of the furniture matched in here: the fine furniture that Luke had not given to his sister was in the nicer rooms.

Resa stood frozen on the rug, holding her elbows in her hands and looking more timid than she had downstairs. Ben put his hand over his mouth and took a slow breath through his nose. He was determined not to hurt or offend her, but precedent suggested he would be hard pressed to speak without doing so.

“What would you have me do?” he asked. Part of him would be content to look at her, at her eyes looking back at him, for hours. Now that they stood but a few feet apart, he could see that her eyes were not pure green, but flecked with gold and brown, like a mossy forest pool at high summer. His gaze drifted to her lips, and he became aware of the other part of himself, that wanted far more than to look.

“What pleases you?” she asked. She was looking at him, but not directly at his eyes. He felt warmth pulse through him at the idea that she might be studying his mouth, his body.

Her question still needed an answer, though, and he was not capable of truly giving one.

“Will you sit on the edge of the bed?” he asked, his voice rasping and dry.

She didn’t speak, but backed up slowly and sat down, still watching him. He followed her, feeling large and clumsy, and then knelt down in front of her.

“Resa,” he said, savoring her name. It sounded as sweet as the flower smelled, making him think again of summer warmth. “Tell me if something feels good. Tell me at once if it doesn’t.”

“I had friends, in Ireland, who called me Rey,” she said.

“Rey,” he corrected. It suited her, quick and sharp, like a thorn. “Remember, tell me.” He put his hands gently on her knees, over her dress, and smoothed them up her thighs, just stroking them gently.

Her legs were thin under his hands, but not as thin as he’d feared. He could feel muscle through the fabric, and he drew his hands down, past her knees and then behind them, until he reached the hem of her dress and her ankles—well, her shoes. Rey breathed out a slow, wavering breath as he moved his hands up again, this time against her stockings, under her dress.

The stockings were woolen, scratchy and worn thin, but Ben could feel the heat of her skin through them. He squeezed her calves, tightening his mouth against a groan over the sweet curve and slight heft to them. He dared to rest his chin on her knee and gaze up at her.

Rey’s face was fully pink, her breath short. Ben could feel a slight tremble in her legs.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice rough, accent stronger.

“Paying my obeisance like any knight would before a lady,” he said. “I won’t rise until you tell me to do so.” He pressed his face down, against her thigh, and heard her gasp. He felt her fingers brush gingerly at his hair, then withdraw.

Ben inched his fingers higher, over her knees, watching the rumpling of the fabric of her dress as it shifted under his hands and arms. The fingertips of his left hand nudged against a metal clasp and wide strip of cloth, and his heart increased its pace. Another inch and he’d reach her skin.

“May I continue?” he asked, daring to look up. Rey was watching him in fascination, her lips parted, and, he noticed, chest heaving with the effort of her breath. Even her neck was flushed.

“Yes,” she said, quickly, in a whisper. Ben swallowed and moved his hand higher, brushing the skin of her thigh. He tried to keep his eyes open, to watch her reaction, but he had to close them and lower his head with a groan. Her skin was soft, and warm. He trailed one finger down, lightly, towards the inside of her thigh, and Rey squirmed and panted.

“Is this how—is this how you do it?” she asked, and he felt her fingers stroke through his hair again, then jerk away.

“You can touch me. I wish you would,” he said, rubbing his hand higher, running his fingers along the edge of her drawers. This fabric was cotton, softer and thinner against his hand. He used his right hand to fiddle at the clasp holding up her stockings.

Rey’s fingers drifted down to his head again.

“Your hair is lovely,” she said, and the warm, melting feeling in his chest grew. He was aware that he was hard in his trousers, but ignored it in favor of reaching his hand around the back of Rey’s thigh and unfastening the other clasp, then tugging down her right stocking entirely.

She let out a stifled whine, gripping his hair, as Ben seized her now-bare calf and buried his face against her thighs again.

“Oh,” he said. “I cannot stand this for long.”

“What next, then?” Rey lifted his head with her hand under his chin. He leaned a little back from her, still keeping his hands on her legs under her dress. There was nothing that could make him pull his hands away from her warm flesh, he thought.

“In truth,” he said, flushing and looking away from her, “I am not sure. I must confess—I want you badly, but I have never done…this, before.”

“Oh!” Rey startled, eyes round. Ben lowered his eyes once more.

“That is why I ask that you tell me, whether something pleases you or hurts you. I have little knowledge.” He braced himself for her to joke, as she was inclined to, and huffed out a breath through his nose.

But Ben only felt the delicate touch of her hand through his hair again, then down his cheek to his jaw. He turned his head to kiss her fingertips.

“This is good,” she said, in a hushed voice.

Ben determined to make certain that her assessment of this did not waver for an instant. He had theoretical knowledge aplenty, and university and wartime had provided exposure if not experience. He undid the garter clasp of her other stocking, drawing it down and stroking her left thigh and calf, brushing the wrong way at the fine hairs on her shins.

He reluctantly took his hands off her bare legs and started picking at the laces of her shoes. Ladies’ shoes, the type his mother or her friends would wear, buttoned tightly with hooks, but these had thick heels and tied, so he could undo them easily enough. He tugged them off her feet, thinking absurdly of the fairy tale with the glass shoe, and hesitated to pull off her stockings completely.

“Will you be too cold if I take these off?” he asked, and wrapped his hand around her foot. It was cold even through the stocking. “Never mind.”

He couldn’t resist, though, to raise her skirts to her knees and look at her bared legs, then bend his head down to kiss her calves and knees.

Rey twitched and gasped again, but Ben tightened his grip on her ankles—a little bony, and obscured by the folds of the fallen-down stocking, but still shapely and thrilling under his hands.

Her legs were goose-fleshed, newly exposed to the air, but warmed when he pressed his lips to them, when he cradled her calves in his palms. He would be content to do this for long minutes, just kiss her legs and nuzzle his face against them, but he could hear her breathing quickly, and his prick was so hard it was painful ecstasy every time he shifted.

He slid his hands up her thighs, to the edges of her drawers, and then under, pushing the cloth up, worming his fingers under the dangling garters and searching for ties, finding none.

Ben felt like a fumbling idiot, and he paused, then pushed Rey’s dress higher, up over her thighs. Her muscles were tensed, and he bent his head once more to kiss her there, on the tops of her thighs, then on the inside of her knees.

Rey gave a faint shivery whimper when he did this, so he did it again, then again an inch higher on her thigh. He put his hands on her, brushing his thumbs against the soft flesh of the insides of her legs—he had never felt skin so soft, and he, trembling a little, stroked her there with his fingers, breathing against her knee.

“ _Oh_ ,” Rey’s voice was pitched high, now, and she shifted her legs a little apart, jostling his arms.

“You are still comfortable?” Ben asked, taking the opportunity to crane his neck and look up at her again. She was looking up at the plaster of the ceiling, supporting herself with her arms.

“Not _comfortable_ , but good,” she said. “You may continue. Please.”

He groaned at the word, and pressed his mouth to the inside of her thigh, as high as he could before the edge of her drawers. Rey whined and twitched again when he let his tongue brush against the skin, daring to taste her.

Her skin simply tasted faintly of salt, but she had a scent, with his head between her legs. Warm, rich, that made him think of summer-ripe berries, and mulled cider in winter, but also raw and salty, like earth or blood.

With Rey’s skirt pushed up, Ben could see the ends of the faded ribbons that tied her drawers, lying below the edge of her corset, and he reached out and pulled them, then on the drawers, until they slipped a little ways down, the fabric rolling, stuck under her bottom. He imagined ripping at them, dragging them down to at last expose her cunt to his eyes, but he contented himself with pulling delicately and letting her shift until they were freed. _Then_ he eased them down her legs, watching as they dropped around her ankles along with her stockings.

Rey had gone still, and Ben returned to kissing her knees, running his hands over her hips, underneath the flexible soft edge of the corset: the garter clasps caught at and tickled his hands.

“You’re beautiful,” he muttered into her lap. “Please, lie back so I can see you.”

He would die if she didn’t, so he was glad, relieved, when Rey eased herself down a little, going down to her elbows, so he could push the fabric of her skirts to her waist.

He just looked, dazed, for a long moment, at the dark thatch of curled hair covering her, at his own trembling thumbs resting on her hipbones, his hands curved over the cheeks of her bottom. The dark pink flesh peeking out lower made him swallow, and overcome with sudden nerves, he kissed the inner part of her thigh again, then brushed against her cunt with the backs of his fingers.

Ben tried a kiss, a slow pressing of his lips against the soft flesh, and Rey jerked so hard her thigh knocked his ear.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, as Ben pressed her thigh back down, daring to squeeze it more greedily than before. “I was expecting it, but it still shocked me—oh—” She stopped with a choked sound. Ben kissed her again, this time opening his mouth and sliding his tongue out to lick into her.

She was wet, with a watery, salty substance that he wanted to rub his mouth in for hours. The flesh of her cunt was soft, some parts covered in hair, and Ben licked up the center of her, searching for the clitoris.

It was nothing more than a little nub of flesh, rougher than the rest of her, at the top of her cunt, but when he ran his tongue over it, Rey yelped and jerked again, one hand flying to grip his hair. This time, he kept his hold on her thighs, and repeated the act.

“Oh,” Rey whimpered. Ben drew his tongue down, against the opening of her, and pressed the index finger of his other hand against the quivering flesh of her clitoris, just lightly, for a moment.

Rey cried out, a sharp sound that gratified Ben as much as the taste of her on his tongue.

“Good?” he asked, nudging at her cunt with his nose, tracing the opening with his finger.

“Ja, ja, don’t stop, _bitte, Ben_ ,” Rey’s hands were clenching his hair hard enough to hurt as she rolled her hips upward, into his face and hands, and he hummed against her, licking at her clitoris again.

He found he could spread the slickness of her up to her clitoris, and rub her fast and hard with his thumb. He panted short breaths against her as she whimpered and moaned in a way that not even the most sordid of his readings had prepared him to hear. They had written that women would cry out, but not spoken of the hot ecstasy that washed over him, hearing Rey say his name with need in her voice, hearing her beg him not to stop.

He wanted to tell her that he would never stop, not until she had her fill, but instead pressed his tongue against, and into, the entrance to her cunt, while he rubbed her with his fingers. She asked for _more_ until he was pressing nearly as fast at her as he did when he brought himself off alone, and then he felt the inner walls of her cunt clench at his tongue as her thighs drew up around his ears and her heels kicked his back.

Rey made a choked, muffled sound and moved one of her hands from his hair to cover his hand between her legs, stopping his movement but holding him against her still. He could feel the muscles in her legs and belly and even her cunt twitching.

There was a long minute of quiet, where Ben rested his head back on her thighs and listened to Rey’s breathing even out.

“Did I please you, Resa?” he asked after a little while. In response, a hand tugged weakly on his hair and then stroked his cheek and brow.

“Yes,” she said, hoarse. “You—that was not—yes. You did.” She propped herself on her elbows, still half-supine, and regarded him with a craned neck and canny eye. Her face was flushed entirely. Ben lifted a hand to wipe at his mouth and watched her swallow heavily.

_Do I please you more than he did?_ Even as he thought it, he found he did not care, not with Rey’s eyes fixed on him, not with his arms still caught up around her beautiful legs, not with his scalp tingling from where she had clutched his hair. He had not thought of Luke while he knelt before her, only her.

“You did… _,_ ” she sat up as she spoke, looking a little bemused, and he didn’t let go of her thighs, but straightened his spine to look at her more closely. “I didn’t know rich men did _that_.”

“Cunt-licking?” Ben asked, eyeing her lips. He wanted to ask to kiss her. He wanted to reach his hand down and touch his aching prick. He wanted to live forever in this moment with her looking softly and curiously at him.

“Yes,” she said, blinking and shaking her head a little. Ben was reminded slightly of a dog shaking off water. “What do you want to do?” She licked her lips, and Ben felt like growling like a dog himself with his desire.

“May I kiss you?” he asked, still on his knees. He could not stop himself from clutching a little desperately at her legs as he did so.

“Oh!” Rey looked surprised again. “If you like.”

Ben surged upwards, half-standing with his knees against the bed, and caught her face in his hand, as lightly as he could. Her skin was warm. He touched some of her freckles with his thumb, leaning his face close to hers.

Before he could press his lips to hers, Rey tipped her head forward just a little and kissed him first. Her lips were slightly chapped, but still pliant under Ben’s own.

Her hands came to hold his face, as he held hers, and when Ben nudged at her mouth with his tongue, she opened readily.

He had kissed before, a few times, long ago, but kissing Rey was better than his memories. Her mouth was hot, and she kissed him back, each time he did something. The flash of her hot tongue through his mouth made him groan and rise to his feet, pulling her up with him. The soft brush of her lips on his was dizzying, even without her fingers lightly stroking over his jaw and ears.

A consequence of standing was that even though he had to hunch over a little to kiss Rey, it only took a few moments before the front of his body, including his stiff, aching cock, brushed against her. Ben grunted and tried his hardest to stay still, but his hands flew to her hips, gripping over her rumpled skirts.

“Rey,” he groaned, and couldn’t help but jerk against her, rutting against her stomach. Even through his trousers and against the cloth and bulk of her corset, he could feel the relief in his _teeth_. “Oh, God.” He put his face against her neck, which was cool against his burning skin.

“Do you want to fuck me?” Rey’s voice was close to her normal brisk tones, but there was a touch of breathlessness to it. Ben’s hopes soared, and he couldn’t stop from pushing against her again, the drag of the fabric soothing but nothing compared to the memory of her cunt’s softness against his tongue.

“If you want to yourself,” he gasped out. “Otherwise, leave me, please.” He didn’t let go of her hips, though that would be necessary if she did want to leave. He kissed her neck, trying to still his shaking lips. “Resa. Rey. Please.”

“Yes,” she whispered back, and shifted her head so that she was kissing his mouth again. He closed his eyes and kissed her deeper, until she had to pull away with a gasp. Then he chased her mouth with his again, licking through it desperately, trying to say _yes_ and _thank you_ and _I want you_ all at once. He finally let her draw back with a groan, though not without pulling her bottom lip between his own for a last taste.

Ben put his hands around her waist and yanked at the strings of her apron, which seemed unbelievably knotted and tight.

“God damn it,” he panted, and stilled his hands as Rey reached back and untangled the strips of cloth, casting the apron to the ground between them. The worn material of her dress was a little less worn where it had been covered. He gripped her hands as she made to sit back down on the bed and turned them, so that he sat on the bed and she stood.

“What are you—”

“Take your dress off. Please,” he asked, or rather begged, scrabbling sightlessly at the buckles of his boots. “I want to see you.”

Rey paused for a long moment, eyeing him as he wrenched his boots off. Then, averting her eyes from his, she reached behind herself, fiddling with the buttons of her dress. Ben watched, fascinated, as she twisted her arms to reach.

“If you come here, I can help,” he said, in a voice close to a growl, it came from so low in his chest.

Rey stepped forward, eyes still directed away, and Ben put his arms around her waist, gazing up at her. Her lips were wet and red, shining and enticing as berries. Ben stroked one hand up her back, feeling the line of buttons that marched straight up her spine, then to where she’d undone them, where the wool was opened and he could feel the thinner fabric of her shift. Her skin was hot through it.

“Do you not want me to see you?” he asked cautiously. It would be possible to continue, to fuck with her dress still covering her, but he wanted to see her—the lines of her back, her bare arms, her breasts.

“No, you can,” she said, voice thick, and cast him a look of mixed shame and hunger.

“We can lie under the blankets,” he offered, undoing the buttons by feel, rubbing his fingers down each notch of her spine. “But let me see you a little, you’re so beautiful.”

She huffed a breath out her nose, not quite a snort, and put her hands on his shoulders as he came to the last button.

“So you say,” she said, and Ben tugged the dress down her hips, off her arms, until it was around her knees. She stepped out of it and gathered it, placing it on the chair with some care. The chemise she wore was white cotton, and bared her arms almost completely to the shoulder. The neckline, too, scraped underneath her collarbones instead of reaching her neck.

“I say correctly,” Ben insisted, and held his hand out. She came back to him, still looking bashful. “Have you undressed in front of a man before?”

“Not—not as such,” she stammered. “That is, I sleep in a nightdress.”

Ben drew her close, touching the lacing in the back of her corset. “We are equals, here,” he said. “I have never been naked with a woman, either.” He waited until she looked back at him, a little softness in her summer-green eyes. “I would like to be, if you’ll permit it.”

“Ben,” she smiled a small smile, one that made her eyes crinkle at the edges and showed her teeth. He felt his heart flutter at the sight of it. “Yes.” She stroked his hair again.

“Turn around,” he instructed, and nudged her until she did. The strings tying her corset were simple enough when he was looking at them, and not tied overly tightly. He released them without difficulty and caught his breath as he loosened the laces with his fingers. Rey set the corset on her chair as well and looked back at him.

Ben couldn’t stop himself from taking his prick in his hand through his trousers. The wrinkled fabric of the chemise was loose around Rey’s frame, and didn’t even reach her mid-thigh, so that nearly the whole length of her legs and arms was visible. She stopped in front of his knees with a shiver, and Ben saw her arms and legs were entirely gone to gooseflesh in the chilly air. His eyes darted to her bosom, and he thought he could see the little points of her breasts against the chemise.

“You as well, then,” she said sharply, and Ben cast off his vest with speed, then hesitated.

_Damn it all_ , he thought furiously. How had he become so carried away with lust that he had forgotten? Rey looked at him expectantly.

“If you wish, I can leave this,” he offered, trying not to cringe away from her. His prick wasn’t flagging, but the burning urgency in him was cooled somewhat.

“I would prefer if you didn’t,” she said, hands going to his shoulders and neck. Her touch was warm, and he closed his eyes, trying to savor it.

“I must confess—you might want me to leave it—I was wounded. It is ugly to look at.”

“Your left shoulder. You favored it, earlier.”

“The muscle was mostly intact. It wasn’t a bullet, just a bayonet.” Ben tried to flee the memory, the awful feeling of the blade ripping out of him. Rey’s thumbs smoothed over his brow.

“It’s over now,” she said. “Leave it if you want.” She slid her hand down, over his chest, tugging the fabric of his shirt with her fingers. The feeling of her fingertips against his skin was bliss. He undid the front of the shirt somewhat, but did not remove it.

“Leave my shoulder covered?” he asked her, softly. It was his turn now to turn his eyes away.

“Yes,” she breathed.

Ben, reassured, put his right arm around her waist and pulled her forward as he moved onto the bed, shoving her pillow behind his back and swinging his stocking feet onto the quilt. Rey scrambled to catch herself, one hand gripping his thigh as her chemise rode up her thighs. Ben caught a glimpse of the curls at her cunt and hurried to undo his trousers and push them, along with his underclothes, down his thighs. The only covering afforded to his cock was his shirt, which was fortunately long, and opened only halfway down his chest.

He reached for Rey, and dared put his hands on her shoulders, hooking his fingers under the edge of her chemise. He scarcely waited for her to steady herself on the mattress before he tugged lightly, urging her to lift her arms. She let him take her final garment off, revealing curved hips he’d only felt before, a narrow waist that approached the ideal forms shown on advertising pamphlets, and little breasts with small, pinkish-purple nipples.

He fairly hurled the chemise across the room and placed his hands on the small of her back, smoothing his palms upward over the smooth skin. Rey made a small noise and arched forward, affording him the chance to tilt his head up and kiss her nipples.

She yelped, and he stopped. She was trembling a little under his hands, and her hands were fisted in his shirt.

“We can stop, if you aren’t pleased,” Ben said, but she shook her head quickly.

“No, no. I don’t want to stop.” She petted his hair. “I actually feel impatient. The way you touch me—it makes me needful.”

“Good,” Ben said fervently, and kissed her pretty nipples again, licking over the hardened little buds of them and making her cry out in German something that he felt certain was a curse. He pinched one lightly between his fingertips and smiled as she threw her head back and squirmed in his arms.

Ben didn’t stop kissing her as he pulled one of her legs over his, so that she was straddling his lap on her knees.

“Get under the quilt,” she said. “I’m cold.”

She felt warm, perfect under his hands, but he was still half-dressed and she was not, so he shifted to pull down the bedsheets and maneuver them underneath them, clutching her against his chest while he kicked his trousers to his ankles.

This had the effect of pressing her against him, and his cock, which was still valiantly upright despite the chill. Rey squeaked as his shirtfront was swept aside and the full length of him pressed to her bare stomach. Ben hissed at the contact.

“ _God,_ ” he gritted out through his teeth, touching himself with his own hand, to relieve the sensitivity the cold air had induced. “Resa,” he said, not knowing what he was asking for; then he felt her hand, warm, roughened with some callus, and far smaller than his, wrap around his prick.

“Yours is…large,” she said, in a somewhat strangled voice, and Ben opened his eyes—when had he even closed them?—to look down. The sight of it was sure to fuel his onanist fantasies for the rest of his life: her fingers couldn’t reach all the way around him, but her grip was sure enough. Rey was looking down as well, having sunken down to sit on his thigh. Ben could feel the wet, hot press of her cunt against his skin, and he used his arm around her waist to rub her against his leg. She gave a whimper, hand flexing around his cock.

“Please,” he said, hauling her forward so her legs were splayed over his hips, and the lips of her cunt touched the base of his prick. “Let me fuck your sweet cunt, Rey.”

She raised herself onto her knees once more, wiggling and clutching his shoulders as he wrapped his hand around himself and used the other to guide her legs as she adjusted so that he could press the head of his cock against the entrance of her cunt.

That alone was enough to make him jerk his hips up a little, slipping against her wetness. He cursed and she let out a trembling laugh.

“Hold still,” she directed, and he did, digging his hand into the mattress as she lowered herself onto him.

It felt so good his eyes crossed, and he had to bite his lip as she slid him inside. The slick wetness parted before and enclosed his prick, surrounding him so tightly that he let out a long, low groan.

None of the philosophers whose works he had packed up today had written a single thing that could come close to describing the bliss of being inside Rey’s snug little cunt, and none of the poets, he was sure, had ever heard anything more beautiful than the breathless little cry she let out as he pulled her hips snug to his.

“Oh, Rey, sweet,” he groaned, rolling his hips and making her whimper again. “You feel so good.”

Her hands gripped front of his shirt again.

“You feel big,” she said, in a broken voice. “Ah. I can feel you…” she trailed off, closing her eyes, and Ben lifted her hips a little, grunting as he withdrew a little from her. She whimpered at the same time, bending her head forward against his chest. He could feel the warmth of her breath.

“Am I hurting you?” he gasped out. It wasn’t supposed to hurt women, except the first time, but her words and voice were so altered that he couldn’t judge her tone.

“No,” she said, and pushed her own hips down, taking his cock fully inside again, giving the same whimpering moan. “No, it feels _good._ ”

This time, Ben pulled her up and then yanked her down onto him faster and harder, and grunted again at her sharper, louder cry.

He was going to go blind and die at the pleasure, except he didn’t, he kept pulling her close, until they shifted, rucking up the sheets, so that he was on his back almost fully, and she rocking up and down on her knees. Like this, he could see her small breasts bounce just the smallest amount with every time they came together, and if he looked down, see his cock pushing into her.

She moaned at every thrust, her flushed face contorted into an expression of hungry determination—lip drawn into her mouth, brow furrowed, eyes fluttering. The slapping sound of his flesh on hers filled the room as well, and the rustling of the mattress.

“Ben,” Rey whined, pitching forward onto her arms, and drove herself back onto him with even greater force and speed. “Unh, _oh_ —” she let out a wavering cry as Ben fucked up into her, matching her pace. “Please, please, oh, _yes,_ ” and then he felt the hot flesh of her cunt quiver and then contract around him.

“Uh, _fuck,_ ” he felt himself dig his fingers into her hips with his whole strength, as her back curved and she groaned into his chest.

The familiar sensation of his release tore down his spine and he crushed his hips hard against Rey’s, moaning as she seized around his twitching cock. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, just felt the ecstasy burst through him like a crack of thunder, better than any half-hearted fizzle of pleasure at his own hand.

Rey’s cunt was still twitching deliciously around him, and her legs as well, as she rubbed her face on his chest.

“Kiss me,” he panted, and she obliged, and the taste was all the sweeter for the lassitude sweeping through him. He closed his eyes and felt her breathe against his chest for a long minute, thinking that this was heaven on earth. He had seen hell, and now he was experiencing paradise.

His softening prick did slip out of her, with a soft noise and a spill of warm, sticky liquid on his thigh. Rey froze, her loose limbs tensing.

“Did you—did you spend inside me?”

Ben shifted onto his side, trying to focus. “I—yes?”

“ _Schiese!_ ” The word was muttered under her breath, and he put his arm around her back, trying to soothe her. She relaxed only a fraction, and this close, he could feel her breathing picking back up—not with the panting eagerness of minutes ago, but the rapidity of fear.

“Are you well?”

“I’m fine.” Her voice was tight. “I need to check the oven.” She slid away from him, reaching for the wardrobe and taking out a cloth, which she tucked between her legs. Ben looked down at his seed smeared across his thigh, lingering on his now-soft prick, and seeping onto the mattress.

“Oh,” he said softly, suddenly feeling the naïf. “I am truly sorry. I should have realized it would happen sooner than—well, in truth, I didn’t think of anything at all once I was inside you.” His heart hammered, anxious that she not flee from him. He reached out and touched her shoulder. “Resa, sweet, don’t worry yourself. Please,” he heard his voice crack a little, “don’t run from me.”

She slid the chemise back over her head, and reached for her drawers.

“I do need to check the oven,” she said, still not looking at him.

Ben used his vest to wipe himself down and hauled his trousers back up. Rey was still tying her drawers and picking up her corset.

“I’ll check it, if you tell me how,” he said, not bothering to tuck his shirt into his trousers. He would want his boots, though, in the kitchen with its flagged floor. “I don’t give a damn if the chicken is dry.”

Rey didn’t argue, just finished the laces of her corset and put her dress back on.

“Let me,” Ben all but begged, and with slow steps, she came over to him and let him do up the buttons with his fumbling hands.

“I think you have proved your point, soldier,” she said, as he finished. “You needn’t think you must treat me any differently.”

“You called me Ben, before,” he reminded her, doing up his boots as she tied hers. Again, she didn’t say anything to him.

~

The chicken was not dry, as it happened, and it was still bright outside. Ben felt disoriented, as if time had stretched out around their time in Rey’s room, and it should be dark as night already.

They ate again in the kitchen, Ben with a tremendous appetite. Rey ate a lot, too, but he remembered how quickly she had in their other meals, and couldn’t assess whether it was out of the ordinary for her. She didn’t look at him, just clattered her knife against her plate and jiggled her leg under the table.

“Don’t be afraid of me,” he said, feeling helpless. Was this what happened after making love? Most stories of the kind that were passed around surreptitiously did not detail the aftermath, and this felt like little jabs in his heart, to have her ignore him.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, putting some of the potato into her mouth.

“I didn’t please you well enough,” he guessed. She had had two orgasms, he thought, but in his inexperience, maybe he hadn’t been gentle enough. His gut tightened at the thought. Maybe some of her cries had been for pain, after all. “I’m sorry I used you so roughly, I didn’t mean to do so.”

“You weren’t too rough,” she snapped. “And you know well enough I had my pleasure as much as you did.”

“Please forgive me for spilling inside you. I just—didn’t think.”

“It’s common enough,” she said, begrudgingly. “I used to hear stories of men who finished the moment they put their cock inside the first time, so I shouldn’t be angry over you spending and surprising yourself.”

Ben had heard the same stories, and the jeers that accompanied them, and wondered if he had acquitted himself well or not. He had enough sense not to ask, though.

“Please don’t think you need to run away from me,” he repeated. She hunched over further.

“I’ve no need to run, you will leave soon enough,” she retorted, taking a bite of her chicken. Ben bit his tongue. He had not thought of it, but she was right. Since arriving, his mind had scarcely turned to Gloucester and his mother’s house, being occupied entirely with Rey’s presence, but he would need to return soon.

He turned it over in his mind, and a surge of guilt began to stifle the warm, calm feeling in his chest. He had arrived but a day ago, and scarcely spoken to Rey except to argue with her, and then nearly bullied her into bed. She had been crying, only minutes before she’d asked him upstairs, hadn’t she?

Where would she go? The new vicar was in fact likely to have his own household, and though Rey’s food was to Ben’s tastes, she was no expert English cook or trained parlor maid. Luke, given to—or at least _previously given to_ —a certain asceticism, would not have noticed if he was fed a king’s banquet or a shepherd’s pie on any given day.

She had kissed him back so eagerly, though, and tasted so sweet and writhed so prettily in her pleasure.

“I have to hire a wagon and some men to help me lift the furniture, first,” he said, looking down at his plate. “All I’ve packed today is the office. I need more crates.”

He did not want to pack, but would rather lie back in bed with Rey. He had barely got to touch her, really: hadn’t had the chance to lie each of his fingers in each notch of her spine, hadn’t kissed every inch of her arms, hadn’t rested his head on her stomach and slept beside her.

These were romantic notions, the kind to be confined to the idylls of knights and ladies at which Rey had been scoffing. They made his chest ache with a hollow, hungry feeling that only felt hungrier after their coupling.

After they ate, and with the last of the evening’s light fading quickly, Ben watched her set water to heat for the washing-up.

“Will you sleep in my bed tonight?” he asked. “I think we dirtied yours.”

“And dirty that one, as well?” she responded.

“We needn’t,” he faltered in his words. “Unless you desire it, of course.”

She regarded him with her most puzzled gaze again, then smiled slightly.

“Ah. I forgot, for a moment. Your soft heart.”

Ben blushed, and went to pump more water into the tank and see if there was enough wood stacked in the scullery. When he returned to the kitchen, Rey was gone, though she had left a candle burning for him, on the table next to the dripping, cleaned dishes.

He climbed upstairs to find the light in the study on again, and Rey sitting there with a book. It was not so late, after all, though he still felt slightly out of time, as if he had died and brought back to life.

“Guten Abend,” he told her, pausing in the doorway. She had left it open, though it was cold. “What are you reading?”

In response, she held the book up so he could see the spine. Goethe. One of Luke’s—one of _her_ books in German.

“Should we read together?” he asked. She gave him a slight smile and jerked her head, indicating that he should come into the room.

She rose from Luke’s chair, letting him take it, and then, a little stiffly, also let him pull her half into his lap. She stayed perched on the edge of his knee, with most of her weight still on her right foot, but he put his hand on her waist, to keep her steady, and she left it there.

The book was open to the middle of a play: the text along the top of the page read _Iphigenie auf Tauris._ His German was not strong, not for reading anyway, but he had read Euripides’ original, once, long ago. Rey took Iphigenia’s lines, and he read both Orestes and Pylades.

By the time they made it through more than five pages, Rey had adjusted herself so she was seated more comfortably and fully on his lap; she was still on just one of his legs, but he had his arm hooked around her waist and resting on her opposite hip. The weight of her threatened to deaden his leg, but he wiggled his toes in his boot every time they turned a page, and the warmth of her more than made up for the potential dead leg.

Rey yawned when they finished Act Two; she ducked her head and stretched her shoulders like a dog readying itself to sleep. Ben closed the book and struck a match for the candle.

“Should we go to bed?” he asked.

“Let me put on my nightgown,” she told him, and he stood in the hallway with the candle so that she could at least see shadows in her room. He could hear the rustling of cloth, but he was still relieved when she came out in a simple loose nightgown, shivering a little in her bare feet.

The bed Ben slept on last night was still made; he had fallen asleep atop the covers in his clothes. Rey hurried past him and squirmed under the covers, hissing at the cold sheets. He could see her curled up into a ball and he paused after setting the candle on the dressing table.

“Want me to close my eyes?” Rey asked from the bed, somehow sensing his thoughts. There was a teasing note to her voice, but not so much that he thought she would refuse to, if he asked her.

“No need,” he said gruffly, and put his coat over the chair, then sat to remove his boots and trousers, leaving his shirt and underpants. The cold air in the room prevented the literal rising of any excitement at the prospect of sharing a bed with Rey once again.

As soon as he slid under the sheets, she wriggled towards him and stuck her icy feet against his calves. Ben cursed, and pulled her back against him, wrapping his arms around her and tucking her head underneath his chin. He didn’t mind her warming her feet on him, in truth: just lying next to her was far warmer than sleeping alone.

Rey fell asleep almost instantly. She only relaxed somewhat in her sleep: Ben could still feel the tension in her shoulders and down her back, but she snored. It was a quiet, buzzing sound: rhythmic and soothing. He fought his own drooping eyes, even after the candle had burned out. The same as before, holding her made him feel blissful, as if he were closed off from all the noise and pain of the world, in some private shelter the size of the bed.

Eventually, however, his strength of will succumbed to his tiredness and the slowly lapping tide of sleep rolled over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem Ben extemporaneously translates for Rey is Christina Rossetti's "The Rose," which in English is "There's sweetness in an apple tree/and profit in the corn/but lady of all beauty/is a rose upon a thorn."  
> Ben is assuming that 'Resa' means rose and is trying to be romantic. In reality, Resa is probably a diminutive of Theresa, but Rey, an expatriate orphan, probably doesn't know her own 'real' name and she gets what Ben is attempting to do.
> 
> There were attempts to send arms to Irish nationalists by the German Empire iirc but I think all the boats were intercepted. Who knows how Rey got to Ireland.
> 
> I looked up a lot of info about this era of sexual slang and terminology and everything should be reasonably accurate.
> 
> Iphigenie auf Tauri is Goethe's version of Euripides' play Iphigenia in Tauros (Iphigenia among the Taurians), which focuses on Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon who was sacrificed in myth for fast winds to Troy. In different versions, including the play, she is rescued by Artemis and becomes a priestess on the island of the Taurians, living in exile. She performs human sacrifices of strangers who arrive on the island. The play focuses on her brother Orestes rescuing her. Anyway, that is where the subtitle of this fic comes from, because I am unstoppably pretentious.
> 
> Comments are most appreciated :)


	3. Shropshire, Day III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter is pretty much written and has been for a long time, but I've been editing and trying to decide if I want to scrap large portions of it, so enjoy this very short bridge chapter. All will be wrapped up in the next one!

Ben woke to Rey slithering out of his arms in the grey pre-dawn. He reached after her, still half-asleep and missed the edge of her nightgown. His eyes were heavy, and he closed them again.

It felt like just a moment had passed when he opened them again, but the room was much brighter, and warmer as well. He stumbled back into his clothes, taking a new shirt and underpants from his haversack, and checked the clock in the study. It was nearly ten.

These days, he slept two, twelve, or no hours a night, in unpredictable circulation. Dreams clouded with smoke and fog and punctuated with the sound of machine guns came every time he closed his eyes, so he would avoid rest until he fell into deep, horrible sleeps that lasted half the day. Except—last night, he had not dreamed, not that he could remember. He had woken in a stupor, still sleepy, and had not thought to fear returning to sleep. He felt, for once, rested.

There was bread in the kitchen, when he went down, but no Rey to be found. He wanted to search for her, but his memory of the town was fuzzy, and in any case he needed to engage help with the packing.

He went back to the public house to enquire about a wagon, and hiring it to the nearest train station, and for help with the furniture. It was hardly past noon when Ben returned to the vicarage with the requisite wagon and empty crates, and the promise of men to lift and carry before nightfall.

He packed the rest of the office, and used a brush and some paint from the shed to write “R. Weiser” on the crate with Rey’s books and the gramophone. He took the glass lamps and old-fashioned vases and candlesticks and cloths from the sitting room, which was rather dusty, and thankfully not as cluttered as his mother’s parlor at home. He went into his bedroom and folded the bedspread and checked the drawers of the dressing table. He rolled the carpet from the office and placed it downstairs, then went into the dining room.

The china cabinet and the box with the silver stood where they always had, and Ben found the key to the chest in a wall sconce, where it had always been when he was a child. He remembered the maid in those days resenting their visits, because it required polishing the silver. If he was too rowdy or disobedient, he was set to help her with the task. He opened the chest with a swallow, and found everything packed tightly in velvet, to minimize tarnish, and clearly not used in years. The handles had a worn pattern of vines and flowers; he thought absentmindedly of the poem he’d recited for Rey. _The lady of all beauty is the rose upon the thorn._ He relocked the chest and considered Luke’s will. Did the silver count as a practical tool or implement? Arguably yes.

But he couldn’t just hand off things he didn’t want to bother with to Rey, who had less ways to handle them than he. So he packed up the china as well, with extra paper and with the tablecloths crumpled up and woven between the dishes. That and the books and furniture amounted to everything of value, at least in terms of things his mother might notice or care about, but he went into the kitchen anyway.

Rey was there, scrubbing something in the sink, her kerchief back on her head. Ben cleared his throat and she paused, turning to look at him.

“What of Luke’s things did you want?”

“I’m keeping the knives.” She pointed to the table, where, indeed, there are three kitchen knives of varying sizes laid out. “And the scissors, and the iron pan. Aside from that, there’s not much I can carry.”

“I can put your name on things and send them to you—”

“To where?”

“Wherever you go!” he snapped back at her. “You should come to Gloucester with me, not go north and work yourself to death in a factory.”

“Come to Gloucester and do what?” She folded the knives and scissors into a towel, and placed that and the iron pan in the basket he had seen her carry before. “Be _your_ mistress?”

“No, just be with me,” he countered. When was she going to get it through her thick, stubborn skull that he didn’t want to subject her to his will? He simply liked being with her, near her.

“Ben, it’s impossible. How can I be with you? Are you going to come calling for me in my tenement with three other girls, where there will be a good chance some of us will be working as whores? With your fine jacket? If I get a job scrubbing laundry, I’ll be lucky. And I’ll be glad. And in that situation, I can’t have a rich man prowling after me like a wolf, bringing up questions about my ‘virtue.’”

She said that last with an irritated jerk of her head, but Ben knew what she was talking about. A good number of the maids at Cambridge had been sacked over affairs, though the students involved never faced more than a half-joking reprimand about ‘slumming it.’

He hit upon a solution, and brightened.

“I don’t want to never see you again. Come to Gloucester. I’ll tell my mother that you were working for Luke and need a position; she’ll find you one.”

“How is that different from now?”

“Well, for one, you wouldn’t be a serf tied to one place. And you don’t seem to mind being here, anyway!”

She bared her teeth at him.

“I don’t need any help from you, or from anyone. I was fine before you came here and I’ll be fine after you’ve gone!”

She seized the basket and stormed out of the kitchen, leaving Ben wincing in the doorway.

He wanted to follow, but the men he’d asked for would be arriving soon. So he went upstairs, steeled himself outside Luke’s bedroom door, and threw it open.

He had been in here as a child, and it was scarcely changed. The bed was still covered with a heavy down quilt and a light blue coverlet. The pitcher and bowl, and the little stand with a mirror and razor, were exactly the same. Perhaps the painted flowers on the pitcher were more sun-faded, now.

There were a few dry leaves under the closed window. The screen in front of the cold fireplace was slightly askew. Ben sniffed—the air smelled faintly of smoke, and cold, and rain. There was no smell of sweat or sickness. Someone must have opened the windows and chased the reek of illness and death from the room.

In the wardrobe, Luke’s shirts were hung neatly; far to the left, at his bad side, were the older clothes, long out-of-fashion and too snug for Luke’s figure in the last ten or fifteen years. On a little shelf, next to his ties, were the little white inserts for a vicar’s collar.

Ben threw the lot not especially carefully into a box, emptying the wardrobe, and tossed the coverlet atop the pile. He wondered what had been on the bed when Luke had been sick, if the bedclothes had been burned. Had it been painful for Rey, to clean up the room and the bed after the body was gone? If it had been, no one had been here to blot her tears or ease her mind.

The bedside table had only Luke’s devotional Bible, leather cover worn perfectly smooth with time and use, and the brace for his bad hand. Ben fought the urge to cast both into the ashy fireplace and limited himself to dashing them to the floor and kicking the table hard enough that one of the legs cracked.

Now his foot and leg hurt. Well, good. He threw Bible and brace into the box with Luke’s clothes, and went downstairs to begin with the furniture.

~

The wagon full of covered furniture and crates required Ben’s attention all five miles east to Acton Scott, which had a railway line. He had had to mark every crate with the address of his mother’s house, and chalk the furniture as well. The business of having them shipped and delivered was expensive, despite Ben’s having left most of the crockery and rougher furniture. He doubted Leah wanted or needed anything besides Luke’s possessions and the finer furniture that had been their mother’s.

Eventually, he was left in the dark at the train station: upon the wagon being unloaded, the driver hadn’t dallied, and turned back immediately.

“What do you think, Falcon? Ride back in the dark?” Falcon only huffed a long sigh at him. The road wasn’t bad, and there was a rising moon.

Ben’s watch indicated it was nearly eleven by the time he returned to the vicarage, but the stove in the kitchen was cold when he entered. He stepped slowly through the empty rooms, then up the stairs. The black spaces of the open doors to the office and Luke’s room stood like wide mouths gaping at him.

“Rey?” He walked forward, towards the little room. “Resa?”

The door was just slightly ajar. There was no light, but as Ben struck a match, he knew what he would find. The house _felt_ unoccupied, the same way it had felt lived-in when he arrived. The bed was empty; Rey’s shoes and clothes were nowhere to be found, even the kerchief that had dangled from the wardrobe handle.

She had taken her things while he had ridden with the wagon. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was already in Colebatch, or Wales if she’d gone west.

Ben dropped the match as it scorched his fingertips, stamping the lingering flame out with the muddy toe of his boot.

He climbed onto the bed: Rey had stripped the sheets, leaving the mattress with nothing more than a thin wool blanket atop it. There was no pillow remaining, but Ben pressed his face against the cloth of the mattress, sniffing. He thought he could smell her in the room, lingering in his nose, and his memory.

When he slept, it was to wake with the room still pitch dark, shouting with the remembered feeling of a dirty blade hacking through him like a butcher’s knife through a tough cut of meat.


	4. Gloucestershire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder to check the tags again for a common trigger!

Ben arrived in Gloucester in the midst of a heavy rain, and spent a long time in the stable, rubbing down Falcon, before stepping inside the house. His mother’s butler, Cyril, greeted him at the door, and directed that a bath be drawn.

“Master Ben—” he would not give up this form of address for Ben, despite Han Solo being three years in the ground and Ben many years from boyhood— “we did receive all the contents of poor Luke’s household in good condition, though Mrs. Solo has some questions for you.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Ben said, hanging up his coat and wrenching his boots off, as Cyril paused for breath.

He could only sulk after his bath for a certain amount of time, however, and after a few hours of lying on his good side and staring at the wallpaper of his bedroom, he was hungry. It was too early to dine, according to fashion, but his mother had an unnerving knack for predicting him, and was sipping soup when he slouched into the dining room in his vest and shirtsleeves.

“Good to see you home, Ben,” she told him. He sat, flinging his head back, and jerked the chair in with a scrape against the floor. The soup was some sort of beef broth, and he ate a generous spoonful rather than respond.

“I only brought the things that seemed like they had been your mother’s,” he said finally, twitching his leg beneath the table. “There was crockery, and so on, but our house is well stocked.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to put more,” she replied mildly. “But I’m glad to have some of those pieces, truly.”

“He left his medals and saber for Cai,” Ben continued.

“I see. There must have been a will, I had realized, so I wrote the town and asked for a copy. Was it there?”

Ben gulped down his whole glass of water, feeling his temper rising. Did she think he couldn’t be trusted to follow Luke’s directives? What of Luke’s things did he even truly want?

“Yes,” he said.

“I saw some of the boxes were marked for someone named Weiser,” she said. “But I don’t remember any Weisers that Luke knew, or in town.”

“His housekeeper was named Weiser,” Ben said, in his best attempt at a normal tone. His voice sounded raspy to his own ears.

“Oh, I suppose old Mrs. Arthur must have passed away. Well, that was considerate of him, but why did you send them here, Ben?”

“I spoke with her, and she said she could not transport them. So I told her I would hold them for her.”

Leah took a thoughtful sip of her soup.

“Where was she headed? I’ll have the boxes sent, Ben, you don’t need to do it.” She put her hand on his arm, brows drawing together a little. “I am grateful you retrieved his things from the vicarage. I know you didn’t see eye to eye, but I wanted some of those things to keep.”

“She didn’t say,” Ben said, in a strangled voice. “Indeed, she even refused my offer to help her find a new position, and told me firmly that she was capable.” Did he sound pitifully rejected by a penniless woman who had fled him rather than accept his aid? He bent his head back over his bowl to find he had finished.

The serving maid came in with the main course and to clear away the empty dishes. Ben thought about eating bread and chicken at the kitchen table in the vicarage, watching Rey tuck in like a wary dog.

“Well, we can only hope she returns for what is hers,” his mother said, tucking into the fish and greens delicately. Her face was as calm as it ever was, but her eyes were inscrutable.

~

His mother, encouraged rather than pacified by his trip to Shropshire, started insisting that he at least take tea or a light lunch a few times a week with her and one of her large circle of friends.

Miss Holdo, a lady his mother’s age and her oldest friend, was most frequently in attendance, and didn’t demand much conversation, nor false cheer. In her presence, Leah was free to be her frequently sharp-tongued, rather radical self, and neither woman censored herself on Ben’s account. The topics ranged from economics to art to gossip to politics, though the war was artfully danced around, until its shape was clear from its omission.

He found these teas fairly exhausting, but the ones with one or another of his mother’s young protegees were worse. Miss Connors, whom he had kissed so long ago, was engaged to be married, but Miss Natalia Linton, Miss Jessica Pavan, and Miss Bozena Nettles were invited to tea weekly. Miss Linton insisted on being called Tally, and seemed far younger than the twenty-three years she was. Miss Pavan was always dressed in a riding habit and spoke fondly of her close friend frequently. Miss Nettles was much more interested in talking to Leah about politics and gossip than in even meeting Ben’s eyes. None of this dissuaded his mother very much.

Even a visit from Cai Bakke, his father and Luke’s good friend, and Landon Calrissian, Han’s onetime investor, was nearly unbearable, consisting largely of hagiography of Luke and then of Han. The latter was an old, dull ache, bordering on bittersweet, but the praise of Luke sent a jolt of searing rage through his guts. When he begged everyone’s forgiveness on account of an uneasy stomach, he wasn’t even pretending.

By the middle of summer, Ben had given up on the idea that Rey might return for her books after all. He had read the entirety of _Iphigenie auf Tauris_ , and then the rest of the book, improving his German considerably. Then he had gone through Euripides as well, which took him through all of July and could be seen as a return to his scholastic habits. Luke’s notes littered some of the volumes, mostly in pencil, and those he carefully rubbed out from the pages. He hadn’t found any notes in German, nor in a hand he didn’t recognize, as of yet.

He had not ceased in brooding and shutting himself away as frequently as possible, though with the fine weather, it was less easy to simply avoid others by going out. He was limited to going on rather hard rides which no one in his acquaintance could manage, and Falcon didn’t hesitate to make _his_ feelings known when he felt these rides were too frequent.

It was on one such afternoon that Ben was walking Falcon through Westgate, wondering if he should stop in one of the public houses before he returned home. The grouchy beast had decided he would no longer stand for Ben to be on his back for at least the rest of the day, after Ben had put them both to hard use in the hills, and so Ben was walking back, mud up to his knees solidly and splashed up further.

As was typical for a warm day in August, there were plenty of disheveled boys and girls selling fish, crabs, and eels from the river, alongside the hawkers of fruits, greens, haberdashery, and secondhand goods of all sorts. Ben had once or twice been asked, ‘since you’re surely going out riding today,’ to bring back set-aside fish from the cook’s supplier, rather than putting one of the household servants to the trouble. The crowd more or less parted for him, thanks to the large horse he was leading, but even the prospect of being shouldered aside was not as frightening as losing a deal, so it was still slow progress as he had to navigate around bartering pairs.

Rey was there, with a large basket overflowing with greens, her hair tucked back under her kerchief and her shawl wrapped around her as usual.

At first, Ben did not quite believe his eyes. Falcon prodded at his back as he stopped dead in the street, blinking to see if he was having visions due to the air off of the river. Rey was a mere two or three yards from him, gesturing to a woman in clothes only slightly less ragged than hers. She was turned slightly aside from him, but the lines of her face were perfectly clear to his eyes, and perfectly preserved in his memory.

He dropped Falcon’s bridle and stepped forward, sending a dirty-footed boy with a basket of crabs nearly stumbling without a care. A girl with a basket of plums fairly leapt out of his path.

“Resa,” he said, grabbing her by the upper arm.

“Ach!” She jerked in his grip, surprised, and tried to wrench her arm away. A couple stalks of something green and fragrant fell to the muddy stones of the street as her basket was jostled. The woman she was talking to turned a harsh look upon him.

“There’s no need to handle her like that, young man,” she said in a heavy Irish accent. Ben ignored her.

“Resa,” he repeated, as she struggled against his grip and finally turned to see his face.

“Oh,” she said, and he watched a slight flush crawl across her highly freckled cheeks. “It’s you.”

“How long have you been here?” he demanded. Her face was a little dirty, and her shawl and dress even more so. He looked at her basket: she was selling flowers, watercress, herbs, and onion, cheap wares that she had likely scavenged from the fields around the river.

“Let go of me,” she ordered.

“No,” Ben said. “You ran away from me before.”

“What the hell do you care?” she hissed, squirming in his grip, but refraining from throwing her full weight against him. The Irish woman backed away from them and disappeared into the crowd.

“I told you to come to Gloucester, and you said no, and then you came without telling me?” He was starting to see red. “What are you doing, selling flowers? Digging onions from abandoned gardens? What will you do in the winter? When were you planning on coming and asking me for your things?”

“When I needed them,” she spat back. “Let me _go_ , you can’t grab me like this in the street.”

“Make a scene then,” Ben challenged. “You’re the one afraid to even see me!” It had been a long time, but he was more than capable of embarrassing his whole family on the market street. It was almost refreshing to contemplate.

“I’m not afraid,” she said stubbornly, but he could see a hint of something like fear in her eyes.

“I didn’t know where you were.” He exhaled a strained breath, trying to compose himself. “I thought you had gone somewhere far, where I wouldn’t ever see you.”

“Why do you care so much about seeing me?” She had given up on trying to wriggle out of his grip and had drawn her basket up before herself like a shield.

“I missed you,” Ben said, too irritated for anything but the truth. “I’ve been reading your books.” He glared back down at her, only somewhat gratified when she looked away first. “Besides, why did you come here if _you_ didn’t care about seeing me? There are better places than here.”

Rey didn’t say anything, just stared stonily ahead. Ben narrowed his eyes.

“Fine,” he said. He put his hand out behind him: true to his training, Falcon had followed him and was waiting. Ben made himself hold the reins with a relaxed hand. “Let’s walk together.”

“I need to sell these,” Rey protested, as he turned them to walk south along the street.

“I’ll buy them,” he said testily. Why had she turned to flower selling rather than ask him for the books, or at least their cash value? Why come to Gloucester and have them as a fallback if she wasn’t going to use them while clearly in dire straits? Her face was thin and rather drawn. What was she waiting for?

Ben was spared having to wonder for long about these questions as they left the market and his temper eased, giving way to his observing and reasoning capacities. Rey was silent, her jaw set so tightly he knew she was on the verge of tears. Even outside of the crowds, she walked with a slow step, and Ben felt it as, coldly, dreadfully, the heavy gears in his head finally thudded into place.

He dragged the basket out of her still hands, casting half the contents onto the ground, and was left without a free hand to cover his face, so he dropped it entirely as he staggered.

“My basket,” Rey said, voice cracking, and folded her arms in front of herself. Unlike the basket, this did little to conceal the swell underneath her dress.

“Hell,” Ben said, stopping again. Rey was crying.

“I was _fine,_ ” she raged at him. “God damn you!” Her fists were clenched. Ben’s temper flared in return.

“I feel we’ve had this conversation before,” he snarled. “I was right that time, too. You are far from fine, just as you were then.”

“Nur habst gelitten _du_ nisht—”

“I’ve lived through plenty of hells,” he cut her off. “Why are you so determined to suffer and insist it’s not really suffering simply because you’re only starving a _little_?”

“I’m not,” she said weakly. “You don’t understand.”

“All I understand,” Ben said miserably, “is that you ran from me without any of what you were owed, and without any of the help I wanted to give you. And now you’ve appeared before me, like a ghost, and you’re clearly hungry, and going to have a baby.” He took a deep breath, running a hand down his face. “Don’t try and tell me it’s Luke’s, I’m not a complete fool.”

“What makes you so sure it’s yours?” she countered, in a voice clearly meant to be cruel, but the effect was spoiled as her voice cracked in the middle of her last word.

“I did miss you,” he said, helplessly. His head was spinning; a mixture of rage, fear, and delight had chased most thoughts away. Rage at her for leaving, at himself for not following; fear that she would leave again, fear of the future that seemed frighteningly close and obscure; delight at seeing her face once more; fear, again, at how thin that face was.

“I was just trying to be shrewd,” Rey said, not looking at him. “I thought I would do better in Manchester than depending on you.”

So she had gone elsewhere, first.

“But I realized the situation after a few months,” she continued. “And…I came here. Not to ask you for anything. Just…” She trailed off without finishing.

Ben thought he understood.

“You were going to wait until it was born, then ask for the books to sell, so I wouldn’t know I had any responsibility,” he said. “But you came here, just in case you had to ask earlier.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Were you going to wait until you were begging barefoot or so weak you could only crawl?”

“Stop,” Rey said, clutching at the sides of her head. “I didn’t mean to see you, or bother you—”

“Jesus Christ,” Ben swore. “I _want_ you to bother me.” He picked up her basket and hung it unsteadily on his saddle; Falcon turned his head and sniffed at the remaining greens. “And it’s not just your baby, it’s mine too.”

“It’s _in me_ ,” Rey hissed, putting her hand over her stomach. “You didn’t even know about it until this hour!”

“I know now,” he insisted. “If you didn’t want the chance for me to know, you would have stayed away, or gotten rid of it.” He waved a hand, trying to indicate that he was aware that women could get rid of babies they didn’t want. “Let’s not fight, you look tired.”

“I need my basket,” Rey sniffled.

“I’ll carry it,” Ben said. She bridled immediately.

“What, will you come back to my room? It’s crowded, I share with several others. I don’t think you want to fuck there.” Her tone was sarcastic.

“I don’t want to fuck _at all_.” Ben scowled, offended. “I’m not an animal. You’re hardly in a fit state, and it’s not even an hour since we met again.”

“Well, what do you want, then?”

He stood still, studying her face. She wore an expression that was close to the one she’d had when she had wept in the vicarage kitchen, gasping her admission that she wanted him in a frenzy of rejected terror.

“I want to at least give you your things,” he said, thinking. The rest of what he wanted must wait. “Did you change your first opinion on me, then?”

“Which opinion?” Rey used the heel of her hand to dab at her eyes.

“That I’m soft-hearted and naïve. Do you think now that I’d throw you into the street while you’re pregnant?”

Her mouth trembled.

“Everyone does,” she said, finally, and Ben watched as her stemmed tears spilled over her cheeks freely. “Why should you—be different?” Her voice broke, and she swayed on her feet, clutching her head again.

Ben stumbled forward, steadying her, then lifting her into his arms. She was light and warm in his hands.

“Rey, please,” he said. “Don’t fight with me now.”

“I can stand,” she mumbled, shaking.

“Can you sit up if I put you on Falcon?” he asked. Her eyes went wide.

“Nein! Don’t put me on the horse!” Her fingers clutched his shoulders over his jacket, grip strong with fear.

“I won’t,” he said. His shoulder was much healed, but it was still a little painful to hold her like this, so he set her back onto her feet, keeping his arm around her waist. “Here, hold this.” He clicked his tongue at Falcon, so the horse moved closer, and he pressed a stirrup into her hand.

He hadn’t taken so much as a water bottle or an apple on his ride, which now seemed unforgiveable. It was still more than a mile back to the house.

“If I get in the saddle, will you let me help you up?”

“Where are we going?” Rey seemed a little steadier, leaning on Falcon.

“I’m going to get you dinner.” It wasn’t untrue, though it didn’t answer what she had asked. This didn’t escape her notice, and Ben watched her frown and open her mouth to demand clarification. “Please, Rey, just trust me and let me take care of you for now.”

She went still for a moment, considering him, and then gave him a very small nod.

“I remember. Your soft heart.”

~

Rey balked when they went too far east of the city center.

“Where are we going?” she asked again.

“My mother’s house,” Ben said. “Where else did you think your books would be?”

She didn’t say anything further as they walked out of town and into the fields and little woods, up the carefully maintained drive upon which Landon Calrissian sometimes drove his automobile, when he wanted to shock Leah. Once the house was in view, though, she stopped, even letting go of Falcon’s stirrup and standing still in the dust.

“I don’t want to go forward,” she said, crossing her arms in front of herself.

“I packed up that whole house, you can at least enter mine,” he countered, and reached out to take her hand, which was stiff and surprisingly cold.

“I can’t, not dressed like this, rich man,” she said, in a tone that indicated this was obvious, even as she let him tug her forward a little.

“We’ll go to the stable first, anyway,” he soothed. “Falcon is tired, and we can brush off some of this mud.

The groom—there had once been more than one, when Han was alive, but now there was one groom, and a hand who shoveled the manure—was not in the stable. Neither was Leah’s favored mount, nor the two-year-old filly of Falcon’s. Perhaps his mother was riding out with Miss Holdo, or some other acquaintance.

Rey leaned against a stall and scraped river mud from her shoes as he watered and rubbed down Falcon. He remembered sitting in the kitchen while she quietly did her tasks; this felt similar, in its way. She was leaving little flakes of dried soil all over the stable floor, from her boots and the hem of her dress, but he let her beat her skirts and shake a small fraction of the dust from them.

He took them in through the kitchen door, leaving his boots in the scullery. Rey, looking tremendously uneasy, stood on one leg and braced her hand against the doorframe, picking at her shoelaces. Ben, eyeing her stomach and feeling a surge of guilt, knelt down and took her foot in his hands, untying the laces himself.

“Here we are again,” he said, trying to joke, but he didn’t raise his eyes to meet her gaze, in case she was angry or sad. He put her shoes on the floor, and took off his muddy coat. “If you take off your stockings, we’ll make less of a mess on the floor.”

She looked down at the already muddy floor and then raised an eyebrow at him.

“I mean, the floor in the rest of the house.”

Ben had not made a great effort, after his return, to ingratiate himself with Mrs. Anders, the cook. He was regretting that, now. Rey looked pale and half-awake, and he was loathe to leave her for more than a moment, lest she panic and run again. Well, he had gotten her to take her shoes off, at least, which would slow her for a moment.

He dodged into the kitchen, which, unlike the scullery at the moment, was busy. Mrs. Anders herself was settling a brace of plucked quail into a dish, while her maids were peeling, chopping, and stirring.

“Mr. Solo,” she said, a little testily. She was his mother’s age, and not especially deferential to anyone except Leah.

“Is anyone expected for supper?” he asked, as he took an apple from the barrel by the door, and a tin that held butter biscuits from tea a few days ago.

“Miss Holdo, and General Akers, I believe. And yourself, of course.” She said the last with a strong implication that she didn’t consider him polite enough to necessarily show his face.

“Thank you, Mrs. Anders,” he said, and went back to the scullery. Rey had a terrified expression on her face, and he was a little, shamefully, gratified to see her relax at the sight of him. Bringing her here had caused the terror, of course, but she felt safer with him, and that was comfort enough for him. He certainly felt better and safer near her. He held out the apple and the tin.

“No dinner yet, but I think you’re hungry,” he said, and let her fairly snatch the apple from him and bite into it with a crunch. Watching her eat with her usual ferocious appetite this time sent a cold chill through him. It was chance alone, or mostly chance, that he’d found her. She might have gotten ill, or starved, before their paths crossed again.

He should have returned to Bishop’s Castle immediately and made himself a menace, asking questions until he found out where she had gone. He should have waited at the vicarage and let the wagon and furniture hang until she came back.

The apple was gone. He handed her the tin of biscuits, and she ate one hesitantly, coughing over the taste at first. Her shoulders drew in over the box, and Ben recognized the posture of a soldier who’d come into possession of some delicacy and didn’t want to share.

“Eat as many as you like,” he said, because she was staring down at the tin, yet not taking another.

“Are you going to hide me in the kitchen?” she asked sourly, around a mouthful of crumbs.

“Kitchen is full,” he responded. “And I’ve no plans to hide you.”

“I would prefer to hide, actually,” she said. Ben was thinking, and ignored her.

“We have hot running water,” he said. “I’ll start you a bath.”

He could see how tempted she was by the words. He doubted that the vicarage saw bathing more frequently than once a fortnight, without a furnace or piped water, but still, she had been cleaner in March than she was now. Washing in the Severn was a dubious prospect at the best of times.

“Fine,” she said, and they went up the back stairs, to the first floor. The bathroom was one of two, and was functionally his. Ben put the plug in the drain and turned on the tap. There were clean towels, and soap, and clothes and brushes.

“I’m going to get you some clothes,” he told Rey, and went into the hall, closing the door behind him. It was normal for him to leave the bathroom while waiting for the tub to fill. It was less normal for him to walk in his grimy stockinged feet towards his mother’s room.

The room was not empty. One of the maids, Zara, was there, wiping down sills and baseboards. Ben felt relieved. Zara had a soft spot for him—he suspected it was because her sweetheart had also been in the war, but now, he didn’t much care why.

“Zara,” he said, voice low. “I need help.”

She approached, tucking her rag into her apron pocket, and gave him an expectant look.

“Well,” he said. “I need a clean dress. For a woman.”

“I wouldn’t think you needed one for yourself,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

“About your size,” he said. Zara was more solidly built than Rey, but Rey was pregnant. “And other clothes.” He would have been able to make use of a dressing gown from his mother’s room, and not much else.

“Ben,” Zara whispered, sounding both scandalized and intrigued. Her big eyes were enormous.

“Please,” he said. “Just to borrow. I’ll owe you.”

“You really will,” she said firmly, but turned and headed in the direction of her room. Ben awaited her return, hovering at the end of the hallway, listening to the water run in the bathroom.

Zara reappeared with a bundle of fabric and a stern look in her eye.

“If your tumbling in the woods has dirtied whatever girl you managed to sweet talk so badly she needs a bath and new clothes, might I suggest choosing another location?”

“It is not that situation,” Ben said stiffly, feeling his cheeks heat. Clearly, Zara feeling she could offer more cheek than usual was part of the price. Fine. He suspected it was the least of what he would have to pay in the coming days. “Thank you.”

He knocked at the bathroom door before opening it, but when he stepped in, Rey was still standing in her clothes. The bath wasn’t even half full, but the water was starting to steam at least.

“I got you these,” he said. “I’m not sure how well they’ll fit, and they’re only loaned.” The bundle had the white of petticoats and other underthings, but also a blue patterned fabric that must be Zara’s nice dress. He wondered whether his mother would recognize it, and then decided he didn’t care. He put the clothes on a stool. Should he stay in here? It would be strange to stay, but it would be stranger to run a bath and remain in his room.

“I’ll wait outside,” he said, and showed Rey how to turn off the taps. “I’ll change my clothes, at least. You can bathe in private.”

Rey stuck her hand in the water and her eyelids drooped a little. She nodded.

Ben stripped in his room, and used the cold water in the pitcher there to scrub his dirtiest parts. Clean clothes made him feel slightly fresher. He waited about ten minutes, pacing over the carpet and running his hands through his hair, before returning to the bathroom and opening the door with a quiet knock.

Rey was in the tub, shielded from his eyes by its high rim as well as the steam in the air. The room smelled of soap and river dirt. Ben turned away from Rey and opened the tap, wetting a small cloth. This would be better than the cold water in his room. He darted his eyes over to where Rey was sitting in the tub. She was not looking at him, but she could turn her head or eyes and see him if she wanted.

And what of it? She was naked in front of him, not just literally, but with her pregnant belly, she was unable to hide the truth her body shouted out to him. He took off the clean shirt, hung it on a hook, and used the wetted cloth and a little soap to scrub his armpits and chest. Thank God the little mirror was fogged over, so he didn’t have to look at the scar on his shoulder, and he was facing so his uninjured side was toward Rey, but still his heart pounded coldly in his chest until he shrugged back into his shirtsleeves.

He remained standing at a right angle to Rey, so she didn’t feel stared at, and used the soapy cloth to clean off his feet. He could hear soft movements in the water, and chewed his lip.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come looking for you,” he said finally. “I should have.”

Rey made a scoffing noise and he heard the sound of the plug being removed from the tub, and the tap turning back on again.

“You didn’t know I was pregnant,” she replied, and he looked out of the corner of his eyes to see her sticking her head under the tap and rinsing the soap scum from her hair.

“Still,” he said, and fell silent, because he didn’t know how to say that he felt like a bastard, worse than Luke, worse than every soldier in every brothel in France, who had at least understood that if affection and love and marriage were beyond them, something was still owed.

He turned away when she reached for a towel to dry off, listening to the sound of her heaving her legs over the edge of the tub. Shit. He probably should have helped her, considering her condition. He thought grimly of the teas his mother had been forcing him to attend with young women; Ben was so unfit to be with anyone that he couldn’t even think to help the pregnant girl out of the bath.

“Where did you get these clothes?” Rey asked; he heard cloth rustling and turned slowly. She was in a chemise that fit a little oddly, and pulling on a petticoat over that. He could see the shape of her breasts and her slightly swollen belly, as well as the bony lines of her arms and the too-sharp corners of her bare elbows and shoulders.

“I borrowed them from one of the maids,” he said. Zara would like Rey, probably. He couldn’t imagine anyone not.

“It’s a nice dress,” Rey said, and carefully did up the line of buttons at the front. She looked shorter and softer than he remembered her, despite her thinness and the way her hair hung wetly around her face. He reached out, unable to stop himself, and touched her shoulder. It was reassuringly solid.

“Come with me,” he said, and took her dirty clothes in one hand and her hand in the other.

No one was in the hallway, and he led Rey into his bedroom, closing the door behind them. She was looking at him through narrowed eyes, and he stepped slowly away from her. The shadows under her eyes were more pronounced now that she was clean. They made his chest hurt.

“Just rest,” he said. “Here. I will stay at my desk.” He retreated to the desk and indicated the empty bed. “After you rest, we can eat some more.” She had finished the tin of biscuits, which he set on the floor with her clothes.

“I don’t need to rest,” Rey said, crossing her arms.

“Fine,” Ben said, and sat down at his desk. “Well, dinner won’t be for a little while, and we can just sit here then.” He picked up the book with _Iphigenie auf Tauris_ and opened it at the beginning. “I’ll read to you. Sit wherever you please.”

Rey sat stiffly on the edge of the bed, and Ben read aloud, quietly, in his improved German, not inflecting much, until she was a little less stiff, and then drooping, and then lying on her side, and finally asleep.

She slept curved forward, knees up to protect herself, and Ben leaned his elbow on his desk and watched her. Her wet hair was darkening the shoulders of Zara’s dress and the bedspread even as it started to dry. There was still a scent of outdoors and the river coming from their dirty clothes, but stronger was the smell of violet soap.

With Rey asleep, the all-consuming force that was _her_ was dulled somewhat. Ben stroked his fingers along the spine of the book and let himself consider the fact of her pregnancy. The baby. If it came, he would be its father. The idea was foreign, almost impossible to really think about. _Father_ was something Han had been, nothing that he could manage. There was a sharp pain building in the front of his head.

Rey had not wanted him to know. The thought pricked at him, but—once she had known, she had come south. To as close as she could be to him. She had, at least passively, kept the baby. Somewhere in her, she wanted him to know. That would be good enough, for now.

Rey slept past the dinner hour, for which he was selfishly grateful. He was determined that it would be impossible to hide her, and he didn’t want to, but neither did he want an avoidable audience for whatever was coming. Leia was probably stewing herself into irritation at his shirking of dinner. At least she would be propelled out of that petty ire, Ben thought.

It was eight when Rey stirred. Ben was hungry, but ignored it as Rey pushed herself upright, hair crinkled where it had dried. She blinked around at the room, scrambling to her feet and rubbing her eyes as she woke fully.

“Don’t worry,” Ben said, pointlessly, and watched her hand go to her stomach in a gesture that looked reflexive. “It’s just my room.” Rey looked warily at him.

“What do you want?” she asked, back on the offensive.

“Dinner,” he said, and raised an eyebrow at her at his stomach growled. “What about you?”

“I’m hungry,” she conceded, then set her jaw as if daring him to say anything.

“We can eat downstairs,” he said, and she crossed her arms in front of herself again.

“What are you trying to do?”

“Eat dinner, and feed you dinner,” he snapped back. “This part is not a plot.”

“You made me come to your house,” she growled. “Your mother’s house, rich man.”

“I actually prefer being called ‘soldier’ to ‘rich man,’” Ben said, opening the door. “I’m going downstairs to eat. You don’t have to come.”

Rey bared her teeth at him like an animal, but followed him anyway. He shouldn’t be so gratified that she would rather stay close to him, considering that he had more or less made her come here, as she’d said, but he was. After months of feeling pained about how she had left the vicarage, and him, it felt good for her to walk closely at his side.

~

Thank God, neither of his mother’s dinner guests seemed to have tarried long, and Ben led Rey into the breakfast room, turning on the electric light. Where was Cyril when he might be actually useful? Ben wanted them to sit at the table here, and wait for his mother to come to them. The pain in his head was spreading to his jaw.

He yanked the old-fashioned bellpull by the door and gestured for Rey to sit down. She did, with an expression that suggested she would not be quiet for long, and ran her eyes over the room.

The person who responded to the bell was the youngest maid of the house, Babette, who gave a slight squeak at the sight of Rey.

“Tell Mrs. Anders or someone in the kitchen that we need a meal for two in the breakfast room. Nothing fancy, but something warm. And tell Cyril to tell my mother that Miss Weiser is visiting.”

Babette gave a curtsy and sped off, no doubt to inform everyone in the house of the situation. Ben wondered how long food would take.

“What could your mother need to know about me?” Rey said. “I want my shoes back.”

“So you can run in the dark back to the city? Why? My mother knows your name, it’s written in Luke’s will.”

This reminder only made Rey’s shoulders hunch together.

“This house is…far finer than the vicarage,” she said. “And that was the finest place I ever lived.”

“Well, we don’t need to stay here long if you don’t like it.” There was money to rent a house, a small one, somewhere Rey would like better.

“What the hell are you talking about, _we?”_ Rey gritted out. She swore, Ben noticed, with a bit of a Manchester accent now. It made him want to kiss her, but she was glaring at him, looking like a cornered dog ready to bite.

The door opened to emit Babette once more, carrying a large tray laden with plates. Ben’s stomach growled at the scent of quail. That had been fast—he had expected Leia to arrive before the food.

It was his portion of the dinner, with some additional Yorkshire pudding and sauce, and wilted salad. Ben could practically sense Mrs. Anders’ disdain in the steam rising from the coffee. He thought about the meals he’d eaten with Rey at the vicarage and wished for oatmeal porridge or cold chicken.

Rey ate quickly, and so did he, dragging the squares of pudding through the muddled dressings and sauces on the plates. The coffee was a welcome, bitter darkness on his tongue, easing the pain building in his head. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so painful after all. He looked at Rey, taking advantage of her focus on the food. With his headache receding and without the initial rage and panic of finding her again, he could notice that she was as pretty as his memories. He had forgotten the exact set of her brow in determination, the directness with which she met his eyes.

“I think this is more simple for both of us if you just give me the books. Even if you sell them for me, I will accept that.”

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ben said. She tensed with something he couldn’t identify, pressing her spoon harder than warranted against the china of her plate.

“I didn’t ask if you thought it was a good idea, I said it would be a simple plan. Efficient for you. Easier on your soft heart.” She didn’t say the last with fondness, but with frustration.

“Easier on the pride that you only have around me,” Ben said.

“Ja, if there’s one thing I’ve had today, it’s pride,” she growled back, cheeks flushed. Ben pressed his lips together and backed down again.

“Please,” he entreated. “Just don’t think the worst of me.”

She had to know, didn’t she, that he wasn’t going to leave her again? He begged her with his eyes, trying to read hers for a single sign.

The door banged open and Ben’s mother entered without a warning, dressed in a dark rose dress with gold accents. She was wearing her hair up, and Ben wanted to bury his head in his hands when he saw that she had put on gloves and earrings.

“Ben, I was not dressed to receive a guest, especially after you missed dinner,” she said, still not shy to reproach him in front of strangers.

“Mother, please sit down,” he said, cutting off whatever she planned to say next. “I mentioned Miss Weiser to you when I returned from Shropshire.” He pulled out a chair for Leah and she sat, chasing his gaze with hers. Ben looked away, back at Rey, who looked pale despite the empty plate in front of her.

“The inheritor of Luke’s books,” Leah affirmed, sweeping her eyes over Rey. It was probably too much to hope that she wouldn’t be familiar with Zara’s dress, or overlook that Rey’s hair and posture advertised her poverty and condition as much as the borrowed clothes. “It’s very good to meet you.” She extended one hand across the table towards Rey, fingers curved downward in a near-courtly gesture.

“Madam,” Rey said, in a thin voice, pressing her hand clumsily, half-rising to her feet.

Leah’s quick eyes sharpened as they both reseated themselves. She steepled her hands together before her on the table and pressed her fingertips against her mouth pensively.

“Miss Weiser, I am so happy that you have paid a visit, and, I assume, come to collect your belongings. I assure you they are safe and it was our pleasure to hold them for you.”

Ben wished he was sitting closely enough to Rey to reach out and touch her. She looked blank under his mother’s composed stare.

“And I understand better than you might imagine that a young woman in your position might need those belongings right away. You were Luke’s housekeeper until the end, correct?”

“Mother, stop,” he said. The measured calm in her voice, however well-intentioned, had always cut him deeply when he was overflowing with feeling. She wouldn’t refuse to help Rey, but he could already see her judging Rey’s size against the time of Luke’s illness, and he would shatter every plate on the table before he listened to his mother explain to Rey that it couldn’t possibly be Luke’s baby, with all the implication that Luke’s family owed her nothing, really. Not when that was wrong twice over.

“Rey’s baby is mine.”

“I see.” Leah might have looked unruffled to a stranger, but Ben could see the skin around her eyes soften and tighten, and her mouth and shoulders smooth into composed lines as she sat slightly straighter in her chair. “In any case, Miss Weiser, it’s dark and you must stay the night here.”

“Ah—no—I actually have a place where I live—” Rey protested weakly.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ben said. Rey’s posture, which was deferential and almost frightened towards Leah, straightened and sharpened as she turned towards him.

“I am far from ridiculous, soldier,” she said quietly but fiercely. Ben regretted his choice of words.

“Please stay,” he amended, and lowered his voice, leaning towards her. “I’m not going to leave you again. I promise. Please stay and get what you deserve.”

She met his eyes for a second, a guarded trust in her gaze that sent him back to the cold vicarage kitchen, when they had sat alone and finally looked at each other. Before they had both left.

“I can stay,” she said quietly, and nodded jerkily to Leah.

“Perhaps we should speak in the parlor, just as women?” Leah addressed Rey softly.

“Maybe tomorrow.” Ben stood up, answering his mother before Rey could, and positioned himself next to her chair, unable to stop himself from putting her hands on her shoulders. He didn’t want Leah prying into her when she was tired. The nap hadn’t diminished the hollows under her eyes, and she didn’t have a lifetime of fending off Leah’s questions. “It’s rather late.”

It was only about nine, but Ben didn’t care. For once, he met his mother’s eyes and tried to silently ask her to please, wait. She met his evenly, settling her hands together, and finally inclined her head slightly.

“Good evening, Ben. Good evening, Miss Weiser.”

The door shutting behind her only made a soft click, but it might as well have been slammed. Ben’s arm and shoulder were throbbing: usually after a ride he soaked them in a bath, but today Rey had had the bath. He sat down again, pulling his chair close to Rey.

“I’m sorry you don’t like the house,” Ben said quickly. “We can go to a hotel tomorrow if you like.” His leg was bouncing; he stilled it consciously.

“Be quiet,” Rey said, putting her fingers to her forehead. “I can’t think.” She was staring down at her plate.

“Sorry,” Ben said. His leg started bouncing again. He reached out and touched Rey’s hand, drawing it into his own. There was a thin line down her face of a tear. “Don’t cry,” he added. “You’re safe here.”

Rey drew in a slow, controlled breath and dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips. Her voice was only a little choked when she spoke.

“The money for the books would be helpful.” She tucked her hair behind her ears, wrinkling her nose at its behavior while loose.

“But you don’t need it anymore, not really,” Ben said.

“Of course I do!” She sounded tearful again, and angry. “A few hours ago you were chiding me for selling flowers in the market for pennies!”

“Only if you keep rejecting me!” he retorted. “If you hate me so much, after you ran from me, then fine! Keep running, I can’t stop you. But I’ll still give you more money than the books if that’s what you want.” Ben’s voice was shaking now, too. He pressed his lips together for moment. “Even if I never see it, I still owe it something. And you.”

“What do you _mean,_ reject you?” Rey raised her voice, pushing her plate roughly away and smacking the table with her palm. The dishes clattered just slightly.

“You ran away before you even decided if you wanted anything to do with me,” Ben hissed. “And you’re doing it again. You even did it—back then, before we ever—” He stumbled over his words like a fool. “Before we even went to bed, you had wanted me and rejected me before I even realized it!”

“And then I changed my mind and look at me now.” Her voice was low, savage. Her careful English ‘th’s and ‘ch’s were utterly converted to German sibilants.

“You don’t even have to ask for help, not from me!” Ben gripped his hair. He knew even admitting that she needed more money than the value of Luke’s books was burning her pride, though he still couldn’t see why. It wasn’t what he expected from the woman who’d explained that she had considered her body a fair trade for a bed and food. “Just _think_ about taking what I offer!”

“And what are you offering? I will take an extra pound sterling for my lodging, thank you, soldier. I guess you _do_ pay for it.” She wiped at her eyes again.

“I don’t want to treat you like a whore,” Ben protested.

“Then why won’t you leave me _alone_?!” she raged.

“I’m not offering you money, I’m offering you _me_ ,” he choked out. “You’re pregnant, for God’s sake. We should get married right away.”

Rey stilled. Her eyelids were fluttering half-shut, and her brow furrowed, as if she was concentrating very hard.

“Was?” she asked after a long moment of silence, head tilted. “Ich meine, what?”

“If we do it here, we’ll have to wait for banns to be printed, but we could still go to Scotland. A little old fashioned, but maybe better.”

Rey gave a sharp, high little laugh.

“You can’t marry me.”

“I can,” Ben said. “You don’t have a husband back in Germany, I know that.”

Rey gestured jerkily with her arm at the dining room, shaking her head back and forth rapidly.

“You naïve man, you can’t marry me. I’m a half step up from a beggar or a prostitute.”

Ben scowled back, grasping his bad shoulder with his left hand, trying to ease the spasm.

“That means I should just ignore you? What about the baby? It’ll be my child. Because you’re poor, I should let it be fatherless?”

“It’s the way of the world,” Rey said, like she was explaining it to a simple person. “Look, soldier, you might have forgotten, but you’re a rich man. I’m not—I wouldn’t find work here in the scullery. I can’t marry you.”

“It’s not my house, it’s my mother’s house,” Ben said. “We can go somewhere else, a city where no one knows us, and be there. Just us. Without worrying about what we’ve been before.”

Rey stared down at the table, one finger rubbing back and forth over the tablecloth. Her face was twitching.

“Your mother won’t let you do that,” she said finally.

“My mother can’t make that choice for me,” Ben said. “I’m going to be a father myself.”

Rey made a wounded noise, and slammed her face into her balled-up fists. Ben started, and finally reached out to grab her hands, and pull her close to him.

“Why did you see me?” she whispered, her voice a scratch in her throat. She was looking away, her face screwed up in some anguish. “I had a plan. I was going to be fine.”

“Why did you come here, then?” Ben said, clutching her to him so she could press her face into his shirt and not have to look at him.

“It’s warmer here,” she sniffled.

“You knew you wanted to see me,” Ben said. “You knew you would. You knew I wanted to see you, wanted you to come here.”

“I did not really know,” she protested stubbornly, but he could feel hot wetness soaking through his shirt. “You ruined everything by finding me.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I didn’t find you earlier,” he said, because that was the only truthful thing he could say. He could say _I’m sorry everyone else who knew you never tried to find or help you,_ or _I’m sorry your circumstances were so unrelentingly needy you cannot distinguish charity, pity, advantage, and care from each other,_ or _I’m sorry you were born poor and I was born rich_ , but there would be no point. He used his bad hand to smooth back her hair, rather clumsily, and stroke the side of her face. “I know something about you, too,” he said. “You’re soft hearted, too, Resa.”

“I’m not,” she sobbed, but shifted to put her arms around his neck and cry into his chest. Ben wrapped his arms around her back and waist, trying to encircle her in as much protection as he could muster. “You’re not going to marry me,” she said, gasping, but Ben felt her body sag against him nevertheless.

“I am,” he said firmly. And, despite the pain in his shoulder, he picked her up into his arms and carried her out of the breakfast room, up the stairs, and into his bedroom. He deposited Rey atop his bed with little finesse; his shoulder burned so badly that he more or less dropped her like an over-heavy sack before sinking to his knees and clutching at his throbbing muscles with a hiss.

Rey sat up, her borrowed dress snarled at her knees, and faced him at the foot of the bed. Ben’s eyes crossed for a moment, and he bowed his head, breathing in and out through his nose to manage the pain.

“Ach, soldier, you should not have done that,” she said softly. There was a rasp in her voice, but she was no longer crying.

“I’m well enough,” Ben said, a little breathless. “I just needed to convince you I could carry you like a bride. When we do marry.”

She met his eyes for a moment, her own wary and reddened but not full of anger now. Ben got to his feet and went over to his dresser, took out a clean handkerchief, and brought it back to her. She blew her nose and wiped the worst of the tears from her eyes, then handed it back to him, a little awkwardly. Ben tossed it atop their dirty clothes by the wall, and sat down on the bed next to Rey.

Something soft brushed against his hand, and he turned his head to see a folded satin nightgown left lying atop his bed. It was a pale yellow color, and he remembered, suddenly, being a little boy and resting his head against his mother while she wore this. Perhaps while she read, or brushed her hair. His mother must have placed it here, or asked one of the maids to bring it in. Ben put it in Rey’s lap.

“Here,” he said.

Rey smoothed her hand over it, then looked up at him.

“Your shoulder,” she said, setting the nightgown to the side. Ben tried not to tense as she placed her hand gently over his shoulder, but she was careful, not offering any pressure. Her fingers were warm through the thin fabric of his shirt. He held still as she slid her hand to the neckline and then under, just touching the skin.

He had uneven feeling there, on the skin, though usually it didn’t hurt as much as it did now. Rey’s fingers whispered over his skin, softly, finding the divots and creases from the badly healed stitches, the torn muscle. His head was buzzing, and there was pressure in his nose and eyes. He wished he hadn’t thrown aside the handkerchief. Was she looking? He opened his eyes, not knowing when he’d closed them. Her eyes were fixed on his, warm and dark, still tear-reddened.

Ben reached up and clasped his hand over hers, over his shirt, and breathed out in a gusty sigh. It was his imagination, but he felt like it hurt a little less now.

“I just rode too much today,” he said gruffly, looking away from Rey’s steady eyes. She stroked her fingers over his skin as she pulled her hand away.

“It hurts you,” she said quietly. He shrugged with his good shoulder.

It was a little strange, to climb into his bed with Rey. The nightgown was loosely cut but too short; she was bare at her knees. It smelled like the rose sachets his mother kept in her closet, sweet and dusty. Ben put his face against her neck, which smelled like violet soap but also still slightly of wild grass. The combination was soothing, cutting through the slight melancholy that the rose smell was calling up in his chest.

“We’ll take lodgings in town,” Ben said. “Or anywhere else you prefer.” He put his hand on her waist, stroking her side with his thumb, but didn’t curl it forward to pull her close or touch her belly. He wanted to, so badly his palms were tingling, but he didn’t. He could wait. He could remember that he had only found her today.

“Hmm,” Rey said, still guarded. But he could feel her body lying loosed and relaxed next to him, and it was making him sleepy. Her uncovered hair was tickling his face, and he brushed it to the side with an uncoordinated hand.

“I won’t leave you alone,” he said, pressing himself close behind her and wrapping one arm around her, unable to stop himself. She felt warm now, not cold as before, and he felt the warmth of her soak into him and soothe him, as if he had bathed after all.

“Hmm,” Rey said again, more faintly. Her breath shifted, into her quiet snore.

Ben listened to her in the dark room for a while, making plans that dissolved into dreams that were as placid as the river this month, as blissful as eating warm bread in a chilly kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Truly, it's hard to get these idiots to listen to each other! I also lost the thread of some of the points I was trying to make, but don't be too hard on either of my poor stupid babies.
> 
> I am not fully satisfied with this chapter, but I cannot work on it any longer, so hopefully it adequately wraps up the story. I have had a fun time writing out the consequences of these versions of Rey and Ben having their heads and hearts at cross purposes.
> 
> Other notes: the River Severn is the biggest river in England, and prone to disastrous flooding and unpredictable currents, but is usually low and calm in August. It runs from Wales through Shropshire and Gloucestershire.
> 
> Probably 'do the right thing' marriages after knocking someone up were not very common between social unequals like Rey and Ben. Rich pregnant girls would 'have malaria' (or something) until they had the baby and it could be given away, poor pregnant girls just went on with their lives and had illegitimate children. Rey has every reason to think that Ben would be unwilling/unable to marry her, and Ben is kind of a chivalrous idiot in assuming that she'd assume he'd 'do the right thing' in terms of either marrying her or supporting her.  
> As far as I can research, in this era, English marriages still had to be preceded by public banns being printed for (2?) weeks prior to the actual marriage. I'm not sure when this practice died out but there was little marriage reform legislation until the 1930s.
> 
> The plot of Iphigenia auf Tauris is mostly about an exiled girl who escaped human sacrifice, and her cursed brother trying to rescue her while not succumbing to the family curse... it doesn't really plot onto this story but, oh well. It tracks better with actual Star Wars. 
> 
> Freud gets short shrift these days, but his work is actually pretty interesting and less outrageous than it's often portrayed... not an endorsement, just: it's fun to read!


End file.
